ENGINEERING  EDUCATION 


ESSAYS   FOR    ENGLISH 

SELECTED  AND  EDITED 
BY 

RAY  PALMER  BAKER,  M.A.,  PLD. 

Professor  of  English  in  the  Rensselaer  Polytechnic  Institute 


FIRST  EDITION 


NEW  YORK 

JOHN  WILEY  &  SONS,  Inc. 

LONDON:  CHAPMAN  &  HALT.,  LIMITED 
1919 


B' 


COPYRIGHT,  1919,  BY 
RAY  PALMER  BAKER 


PRESS  or 

BRAUNWORTH   &   OO. 

BOOK   MANUFACTURERS 

BROOKLYN,  N.  V. 


PREFACE 


THOUGH  I  can  thank  individually  the  authors 
and  publishers  whose  generosity  has  made  this  col- 
lection possible,  I  can  mention  only  a  few  of  those 
who  have  contributed  to  it  less  directly.  Of  my 
colleagues  in  pure  and  applied  science,  Dr.  A.  T. 
Lincoln  and  Dr.  M.  A.  Hunter  have  been  notably 
helpful.  Dr.  Arthur  L.  Eno  of  the  Department  of 
English  has  criticized  the  manuscript  from  a  literary 
point  of  view.  To  Miss  Harriet  R.  Peck,  Librarian 
of  the  Institute,  who  has  made  available  the  grow- 
ing literature  on  the  problems  of  engineering  edu- 
cation, I  am  especially  indebted. 

R.  P.  B. 


111 


41 03 4 


CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION « vii 

THE  ORIGINS  OF  ENGINEERING  EDUCATION 

CHAPTER 

I.  Evolution    of    the    Scientific    Investigator.     Simon 

Ne-wcomb 3 

II.  The  Relation  of  Pure  Science  to  Engineering.     Sir 

Joseph  John  Thomson 29 


THE  TYPES  OF  ENGINEERING  EDUCATION 

III.  Two  Kinds  of  Education  for  Engineers,  y  John  Butler 

Johnson 45 

IV.  The  Classical-Scientific  versus  the  Purely  Technical 

University  Course.     Howard  McClenahan 65 


THE  BASES  OF  ENGINEERING  EDUCATION 

LANGUAGE 

V.  The  Value  of  English  to  the  Technical  Man.    John 

Lyle  Harrington 75 

VI.  The  Value  of  the  Classics  in  Engineering  Education. 

Charles  Proteus  Steinmetz 93 

MATHEMATICS 

VII.  The  Place  of  Mathematics  in  Engineering  Practice. 

Sir  William  Henry  White 103 

VIII.  On   the   Relation   of  Mathematics  to   Engineering. 

Arthur  Ranum 113 


Vl  CONTENTS 


PHYSICS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

IX.  The    Importance    of    Physics     to     the    Engineer. 

Matthew  Albert  Hunter I2$ 

X.  Modern  Physics.     Robert  Andrews  Millikan 134 

CHEMISTRY 

XI.  The    Relations    Between    Applied    Chemistry    and 

Engineering.     John  Baker  Cannington  Kershaw .  .  .   147 
XII.  The  Nature  and  Method  of  Chemistry.     Alfred  Senier  159 

IMAGINATION 

XIII.  The  Imaginative   Faculty    in    Engineering.     Isham 

Randolph j5o 

XIV.  Engineering  and  Art.     On  the  Value  of  the  Scientific 

.Use  of  the  Imagination.     Julian  Chase  Smallwood.  178 


INTRODUCTION 


As  instructors  in  English  will  see  by  a  glance  at 
the  table  of  contents,  this  volume  has  been  planned 
for  students  of  engineering. 

The  avenues  which  it  opens  to  those  who  are  deal- 
ing with  the  fundamental  processes  of  exposition  are 
so  evident  that  reference  to  them  would  be  im- 
pertinent. It  may  not  be  out  of  place,  however,  to 
direct  attention  towards  three  features  of  the  text 
which  are  largely  original;  in  character,  authorita- 
tiveness,  and  arrangement,  it  represents  distinct 
departures  from  time-honored  methods  of  selection. 

The  articles,  written  within  the  last  decade,  are 
of  immediate  interest.  Though  students  ought  to 
be  familiar  with  the  earlier  phases  of  the  debate 
between  the  champions  of  utility  and  culture  in 
education,  and  with  the  methods  of  such  formidable 
antagonists  as  Huxley  and  Arnold,  the  specific  issues 
over  which  they  clashed  are  apparently  settled,  and 
not  unnaturally  are  regarded  by  freshmen  and 
sophomores  as  remote  and  unimportant.  Other 
issues  have  now  arisen.  One  of  the  most  valuable 
features  of  this  volume  is  its  indication  that  experi- 
ence and  authority  point  towards  a  decision  which 

vii 


viii  INTRODUCTION 


few  undergraduates  expect.  As  a  result,  it  stimulates, 
in  a  novel  manner,  the  clash  of  opinion  which  is  the 
strongest  incentive  to  thought. 

In  another  way  also  the  collection  is  unique;  for 
in  no  instance  are  the  writers  professional  men  of 
letters.  In  every  case  they  may  claim  for  their 
views  the  sanction  of  success — even  distinction — in 
pure  or  applied  science.  Consequently  their  obser- 
vations are  certain  to  appeal  to  undergraduates — 
hero-worshippers  at  heart — who  are  inclined  to  test 
experience  by  deeds  instead  of  books.  What  the 
Chief  Critic  of  the  Nineteenth  Century  says  regard- 
ing the  classics  means  little  to  freshmen  or  sopho- 
mores who  find  their  highest  delight  in  the  antennae 
of  a  wireless  station;  what  the  Consulting  Engineer 
to  the  General  Electric  Company  says  regarding 
them  means  much. 

Moreover,  the  arrangement  of  the  articles — recent 
and  authoritative  as  they  are — is  such  that  they 
present  an  ideal  of  engineering  education  which  can- 
not be  found  elsewhere.  Every  student  will  be 
attracted  by  the  goal  towards  which  the  argument 
moves. 

What  these  three  departures  mean  to  instructors 
in  English  cannot  be  exaggerated.  They  mean  that 
students  will  be  eager  to  think  and  to  express  their 
ideas  as  effectively  as  possible;  that  they  will  come 
to  accept  a  point  of  view  with  which  they  may 
have  had  little  sympathy  in  the  past;  that  they  will 
be  able  to  regard  the  process  of  education  as  a 


INTRODUCTION  ix 


whole,  and  so  fit  into  their  proper  niches  the  ele- 
ments essential  to  success.  With  the  place  of  lan- 
guage and  literature  thus  established,  they  will 
approach  them  with  renewed  zest  and  determination. 

Since  the  volume  will  find  its  chief  use  in  elemen- 
tary courses  in  exposition,  where  accuracy  is  essen- 
tial, effort  has  been  made  to  establish  a  satisfactory 
text.  In  one  instance  the  author's  revised  copy 
has  been  selected  for  publication.  Another  essay 
is  a  composite  drawn  from  two  different  sources. 
As  several  articles  are  based  on  reports  which 
were  never  submitted  for  verification,  errors  in  the 
originals  are  not  uncommon.  These  mistakes  have 
been  corrected.  Where  parallel  passages  occur, 
the  most  acceptable  readings  have  been  retained. 
Moreover,  to  avoid  confusion  on  the  part  of  students, 
usage  has  been  standardized  throughout.  To  adapt 
the  volume  to  their  needs,  and  to  keep  it  within 
reasonable  bounds,  all  the  articles  except  those  by 
Professor  Ranum  and  Professor  Hunter  have  been 
materially  abridged.  Though  much  has  thus  been 
omitted,  nothing  except  a  few  connectives  has 
been  added;  and  the  thought  remains  essentially 
the  same. 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  ENGINEERING 
EDUCATION 


EVOLUTION  OF  THE  SCIENTIFIC 
INVESTIGATOR 

SIMON  NEWCOMB 

[FEW  men  have  been  better  qualified  than  Simon  Newcomb 
(1835-1 909)  to  interpret  the  aims  of  science.  No  other  American 
at  any  rate  has  achieved  such  distinction  in  research  and  written 
with  such  lucidity  regarding  his  achievements.  So  various 
were  Newcomb's  interests,  and  so  numerous  are  his  books 
and  articles,  that  only  the  most  significant  can  be  considered 
here.  Educated  at  his  father's  school  in  Nova  Scotia,  and  at 
Harvard  University,  he  soon  found  that  his  interests  lay  in 
mathematics  and  astronomy;  and  in  due  time  he  became  Senior 
Professor  in  the  Navy  of  the  United  States  and  Professor  of 
Mathematics  at  the  Johns  Hopkins  University.  Of  his  success 
in  investigation  the  best  criteria  are  the  honors  conferred  upon 
him  in  recognition  of  his  discoveries:  degrees  in  many  of  the 
greatest  universities;  decorations  by  foreign  governments; 
medals  by  various  associations,  and  positions  of  trust  in  the 
learned  societies  of  America.  He  was,  for  instance,  the  first 
native  American  after  Franklin  to  be  elected  an  Associate  of  the 
Institute  of  France.  Among  medals  which  he  received  were  the 
Gold  Medal  of  the  Royal  Astronomical  Society  and  the  Copley 
Medal  of  the  Royal  Society.  At  different  times  he  was  presi- 
dent of  the  American  Association  for  the  Advancement  of 
Science,  the  Society  for  Physical  Research,  the  Astronomical 
and  Astrophysical  Society  of  America,  and  the  American 
Mathematical  Society.  While  President  of  the  International 
Congress  of  Arts  and  Sciences  in  1904  he  delivered  the  following 
address,  which  is  reprinted,  by  permission  of  the  Smithsonian 


SIMON1  NEWCOMB 


Institution,  from  the  Report  for  1904.  In  addition  to  articles 
demanded  by  his  editorship  of  the  American  Journal  of  Mathe- 
matics and  the  Nautical  Almanac  he  is  the  author  of  three 
hundred  monographs  on  mathematical  and  astronomical  sub- 
jects. Most  of  these  are  to  be  found  in  the  Astronomical 
Papers.  Many  others,  more  popular  in  treatment,  have  been 
made  easily  accessible,  and  have  done  much  to  stimulate  interest 
in  natural  phenomena.  Nor  did  Newcomb  forget  the  world  of 
Man  in  the  world  of  Nature.  In  several  books  he  set  forth  his 
theories  of  political  economy,  and  in  a  novel  and  a  volume  of 
reminiscences  he  epitomized  what  he  had  learned  of  men  and 
affairs.  Few  writers  have  been  better  qualified  to  trace  the 
progress  of  science  from  the  dawn  of  civilization  to  the  end  of 
the  nineteenth  century.] 

As  we  look  at  the  assemblage  gathered  in  this 
hall,  comprising  so  many  names  of  widest  renown 
in  every  branch  of  learning — we  might  almost  say 
in  every  field  of  human  endeavor — the  first  inquiry 
suggested  must  be  after  the  object  of  our  meeting. 
The  answer  is  that  our  purpose  corresponds  to  the 
eminence  of  the  assemblage.  We  aim  at  nothing 
less  than  a  survey  of  the  realm  of  knowledge  as 
comprehensive  as  is  permitted  by  the  limitations 
of  time  and  space.  The  organizers  of  our  Congress 
have  honored  me  with  the  charge  of  presenting  such 
preliminary  view  of  its  field  as  may  make  clear 
the  spirit  of  our  undertaking. 

Certain  tendencies  characteristic  of  the  science  of 
our  day  clearly  suggest  the  direction  of  our  thoughts 
most  appropriate  to  the  occasion.  Among  the 
strongest  of  these  is  one  toward  laying  greater  stress 
on  the  beginning  of  things,  and  regarding  a  knowledge 


EVOLUTION  OF  THE  SCIENTIFIC  INVESTIGATOR      5 

of  the  laws  of  development  of  any  object  of  study 
as  necessary  to  the  understanding  of  its  present 
form.  It  may  be  conceded  that  the  principle  here 
involved  is  as  applicable  in  the  broad  field  before  us 
as  in  a  special  research  into  the  properties  of  the 
minutest  organism.  It  therefore  seems  meet  that 
we  should  begin  by  inquiring  as  to  what  agency  has 
brought  about  the  remarkable  development  of 
science  to  which  the  world  of  to-day  bears  witness. 
This  view  is  recognized  in  the  plan  of  our  proceedings 
by  providing  for  each  great  department  of  knowledge 
a  review  of  its  progress  during  the  century  that  has 
elapsed  since  the  great  event  commemorated  by  the 
scenes  outside  this  hall.  But  such  reviews  do  not 
make  up  the  general  survey  of  science  at  large 
which  is  necessary  to  the  development  of  our  theme, 
and  which  must  include  the  action  of  causes  that  had 
their  origin  long  before  our  time.  The  movement 
which  culminated  in  making  the  nineteenth  century 
ever  memorable  in  history  is  the  outcome  of  a 
long  series  of  causes,  acting  through  many  centuries, 
which  are  worthy  of  special  attention  on  such  an 
occasion  as  this.  In  setting  them  forth  we  should 
avoid  laying  stress  on  those  visible  manifestations 
which,  striking  the  eye  of  every  beholder,  are  in 
no  danger  of  being  overlooked,  and  search  rather 
for  those  agencies  whose  activities  underlie  the  whole 
visible  scene,  but  which  are  liable  to  be  blotted  out 
of  sight  by  the  very  brilliancy  of  the  results  to  which 
they  have  given  rise.  It  is  easy  to  draw  attention 


6  SIMON  NEWCOMB 

to  the  wonderful  qualities  of  the  oak;  but,  because 
of  that  very  fact,  it  may  be  needful  to  point  out  that 
the  real  wonder  lies  concealed  in  the  acorn  from  which 
it  grew. 

Our  inquiry  into  the  logical  order  of  the  causes 
which  have  made  our  civilization  what  it  is  to-day 
will  be  facilitated  by  bringing  to  mind  certain  ele- 
mentary considerations — ideas  so  familiar  that  set- 
ting them  forth  may  seem  like  citing  a  body  of 
truisms — and  yet  so  frequently  overlooked,  not  only 
individually,  but  in  their  relation  to  each  other, 
that  the  conclusion  to  which  they  lead  may  be  lost 
to  sight.  One  of  these  propositions  is  that  psychical 
rather  than  material  causes  are  those  which  we  should 
regard  as  fundamental  in  directing  the  development 
of  the  social  organism.  The  human  intellect  is  the 
really  active  agent  in  every  branch  of  endeavor — 
the  primum  mobile  of  civilization — and  all  those 
material  manifestations  to  which  our  attention  is  so 
often  directed  are  to  be  regarded  as  secondary  to 
this  first  agency.  If  it  be  true  that  "  in  the  world 
is  nothing  great  but  man;  in  man  is  nothing  great 
but  mind,"  then  should  the  keynote  of  our  discourse 
be  the  recognition  of  this  first  and  greatest  of 
powers. 

Another  well-known  fact  is  that  those  applica- 
tions of  the  forces  of  Nature  to  the  promotion  of 
human  welfare  which  have  made  our  age  what  it  is 
are  of  such  comparatively  recent  origin  that  we  need 
go  back  only  a  single  century  to  antedate  their 


EVOLUTION  OF  THE  SCIENTIFIC  INVESTIGATOR       7 

most  important  features,  and  scarcely  more  than 
four  centuries  to  find  their  beginning.  It  follows 
that  the  subject  of  our  inquiry  should  be  the  com- 
mencement, not  many  centuries  ago,  of  a  certain 
new  form  of  intellectual  activity. 

With  this  point  of  view  in  mind,  our  next  inquiry 
will  be  into  the  nature  of  that  activity  and  its  rela- 
tion to  the  stages  of  progress  which  preceded  and 
followed  its  beginning.  The  superficial  observer, 
who  sees  the  oak  but  forgets  the  acorn,  might  tell  us 
that  the  special  qualities  which  have  brought  out 
such  great  results  are  expert  scientific  knowledge 
and  rare  ingenuity,  directed  to  the  application  of  the 
powers  of  steam  and  electricity.  From  this  point 
of  view  the  great  inventors  and  the  great  captains 
of  industry  were  the  first  agents  in  bringing  about 
the  modern  era.  But  the  more  careful  inquirer  will 
see  that  the  work  of  these  men  was  possible  only 
through  a  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  Nature  which 
had  been  gained  by  men  whose  work  took  prece- 
dence of  theirs  in  logical  order,  and  that  success  in 
invention  has  been  measured  by  completeness  of 
such  knowledge.  While  giving  all  due  honor  to  the 
great  inventors,  let  us  remember  that  the  first 
place  is  that  of  the  great  investigators,  whose  force- 
ful intellects  opened  the  way  to  secrets  previously 
hidden  from  men.  Let  it  be  an  honor  and  not  a 
reproach  to  these  men  that  they  were  not  actuated 
by  the  love  of  gain,  and  did  not  keep  utilitarian 
ends  in  view  in  the  pursuit  of  their  researches.  If 


SIMON  NEWCOMB 


it  seems  that  in  neglecting  such  ends  they  were 
leaving  undone  the  most  important  part  of  their 
work,  let  us  remember  that  Nature  turns  a  forbid- 
ding face  to  those  who  pay  her  court  with  the  hope 
of  gain,  and  is  responsive  only  to  those  suitors 
whose  love  for  her  is  pure  and  undefiled.  The 
true  man  of  science  has  no  such  expression  in  his 
vocabulary  as  "  useful  knowledge."  His  domain 
is  as  wide  as  Nature  itself,  and  he  best  fulfills  his 
mission  when  he  leaves  to  others  the  task  of  applying 
the  knowledge  he  gives  to  the  world. 

We  have  here  the  explanation  of  the  well-known 
fact  that  the  functions  of  the  investigator  of  the 
laws  of  Nature  and  of  the  inventor  who  applies  these 
laws  to  utilitarian  purposes  are  rarely  united  in 
the  same  person.  If  the  one  conspicuous  exception 
which  the  past  century  presents  to  this  rule  is  not 
unique,  we  should  probably  have  to  go  back  to  Watt 
to  find  another. 

From  this  point  of  view  it  is  clear  that  the  primary 
agent  in  the  movement  which  has  elevated  man  to 
the  masterful  position  he  now  occupies  is  the  scien- 
tific investigator.  He  it  is  whose  work  has  deprived 
plague  and  pestilence  of  their  terrors,  alleviated 
human  suffering,  girdled  the  earth  with  the  electric 
wire,  bound  the  continent  with  the  iron  way,  and 
made  neighbors  of  the  most  distant  nations.  As  the 
first  agent  which  has  made  possible  this  meeting 
of  his  representatives,  let  his  evolution  be  this  day 
our  worthy  theme.  As  we  follow  the  evolution  of 


EVOLUTION  OF  THE  SCIENTIFIC  INVESTIGATOR       9 

an  organism  by  studying  the  stages  of  its  growth,  so 
we  have  to  show  how  the  work  of  the  scientific 
investigator  is  related  to  the  ineffectual  efforts  of 
his  predecessors. 

In  our  time  we  think  of  the  process  of  develop- 
ment in  Nature  as  one  going  continuously  forward 
through  the  combination  of  the  opposite  processes 
of  evolution  and  dissolution.  The  tendency  of  our 
thought  has  been  in  the  direction  of  banishing 
cataclysms  to  the  theological  limbo,  and  viewing 
Nature  as  a  sleepless  plodder,  endowed  with  infinite 
patience,  waiting  through  long  ages  for  results.  I 
do  not  contest  the  truth  of  the  principle  of  contin- 
uity on  which  this  view  is  based.  But  it  fails  to  make 
known  to  us  the  whole  truth.  The  building  of  a  ship 
from  the  time  that  her  keel  is  laid  until  she  is  making 
her  way  across  the  ocean  is  a  slow  and  gradual  prog- 
ress; yet  there  is  a  cataclysmic  epoch  opening  up  a 
new  era  in  her  history.  It  is  the  moment  when, 
after  lying  for  months  or  years  a  dead,  inert,  immov- 
able mass,  she  is  suddenly  endowed  with  the  power  of 
motion,  and,  as  if  imbued  with  life,  glides  into  the 
stream,  eager  to  begin  the  career  for  which  she 
was  designed. 

I  think  it  is  thus  in  the  development  of  humanity. 
Long  ages  may  pass  during  which  a  race,  to  all 
external  observation,  appears  to  be  making  no  real 
progress.  Additions  may  be  made  to  learning,  and 
the  records  of  history  may  constantly  grow,  but 
there  is  nothing  in  its  sphere  of  thought  or  in  the 


10  SIMON  NEWCOMB 


features  of  its  life  that  can  be  called  essentially 
new.  Yet  Nature  may  have  been  all  along  slowly 
working  in  a  way  which  evades  our  scrutiny  until 
the  result  of  her  operations  suddenly  appears  in  a 
new  and  revolutionary  movement,  carrying  the 
race  to  a  higher  plane  of  civilization. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  point  out  such  epochs  in  human 
progress.  The  greatest  of  all,  because  it  was  the 
first,  is  one  of  which  we  find  no  record  either  in 
written  or  geological  history.  It  was  the  epoch 
when  our  progenitors  first  took  conscious  thought 
of  the  morrow,  first  used  the  crude  weapons  which 
Nature  had  placed  within  their  reach  to  kill  their 
prey,  first  built  a  fire  to  warm  their  bodies  and  cook 
their  food.  I  love  to  fancy  that  there  was  some  one 
first  man,  the  Adam  of  evolution,  who  did  all  this, 
and  who  used  the  power  thus  acquired  to  show  his 
fellows  how  they  might  profit  by  his  example. 
When  the  members  of  the  tribe  or  community  which 
he  gathered  around  him  began  to  conceive  of  life 
as  a  whole — to  include  yesterday,  to-day,  and  to- 
morrow in  the  same  mental  grasp — to  think  how  they 
might  apply  the  gifts  of  Nature  to  their  own  uses, 
a  movement  was  begun  which  should  ultimately 
lead  to  civilization. 

Long  indeed  must  have  been  the  ages  required 
for  the  development  of  this  rudest  primitive  com- 
munity into  the  civilization  revealed  to  us  by  the 
most  ancient  tablets  of  Egypt  and  Assyria.  After 
spoken  language  was  developed,  and  after  the  rude 


EVOLUTION  OF  THE  SCIENTIFIC  INVESTIGATOR     11 

representation  of  ideas  by  visible  marks  drawn  to 
resemble  them  had  long  been  practiced,  some 
Cadmus  must  have  invented  an  alphabet.  When  the 
use  of  written  language  was  thus  introduced,  the 
word  of  command  ceased  to  be  confined  to  the  range 
of  the  human  voice,  and  it  became  possible  for 
master  minds  to  extend  their  influence  as  far  as  a 
written  message  could  be  carried.  Then  were 
communities  gathered  into  provinces,  provinces 
into  kingdoms,  kingdoms  into  the  great  empires 
of  antiquity.  Then  arose  a  stage  of  civilization 
which  we  find  pictured  in  the  most  ancient  records — 
a  stage  in  which  men  were  governed  by  laws  that 
were  perhaps  as  wisely  adapted  to  their  conditions 
as  our  laws  are  to  ours — in  which  the  phenomena 
of  Nature  were  rudely  observed,  and  striking  occur- 
rences in  the  earth  or  in  the  heavens  recorded  in 
the  annals  of  the  nation. 

Vast  was  the  progress  of  knowledge  during  the 
interval  between  these  empires  and  the  century  in 
which  modern  science  began.  Yet,  if  I  am  right  in 
making  a  distinction  between  the  slow  and  regular 
steps  of  progress,  each  growing  naturally  out  of  that 
which  preceded  it,  and  the  entrance  of  the  mind 
at  some  fairly  definite  epoch  into  an  entirely  new 
sphere  of  activity,  it  would  appear  that  there  was 
only  one  such  epoch  during  the  entire  interval. 
This  was  when  abstract  geometrical  reasoning 
commenced,  and  astronomical  observations  aiming 
at  precision  were  recorded,  compared,  and  discussed. 


12  SIMON  NEWCOMB 


Closely  associated  with  it  must  have  been  the  con- 
struction of  the  forms  of  logic.  The  radical  differ- 
ence between  the  demonstration  of  a  theorem  of 
geometry  and  the  reasoning  of  everyday  life  which 
the  masses  of  men  must  have  practiced  from  the 
beginning,  and  which  few  even  to-day  ever  get 
beyond,  is  so  evident  at  a  glance  that  I  need  not 
dwell  upon  it.  The  principal  feature  of  this  advance 
is  that,  by  one  of  those  antinomies  of  the  human 
intellect  of  which  examples  are  not  wanting  even 
in  our  time,  the  development  of  abstract  ideas  pre- 
ceded the  concrete  knowledge  of  natural  phenomena. 
When  we  reflect  that  in  the  geometry  of  Euclid  the 
science  of  space  was  brought  to  such  logical  per- 
fection that  even  to-day  its  teachers  are  not  agreed 
as  to  the  practicability  of  any  great  improvement 
upon  it,  we  cannot  avoid  the  feeling  that  a  very 
slight  change  in  the  direction  of  the  intellectual 
activity  of  the  Greeks  would  have  led  to  the  begin- 
ning of  natural  science.  But  it  would  seem  that  the 
very  purity  and  perfection  which  were  aimed  at  in 
their  system  of  geometry  stood  in  the  way  of  any 
extension  or  application  of  its  methods  and  spirit 
to  the  field  of  Nature.  One  example  of  this  is  worthy 
of  attention.  In  modern  teaching  the  idea  of  mag- 
nitude as  generated  by  motion  is  freely  introduced. 
A  line  is  described  by  a  moving  point;  a  plane  by  a 
moving  line;  a  solid  by  a  moving  plane.  It  may, 
at  first  sight,  seem  singular  that  this  conception 
finds  no  place  in  the  Euclidean  system.  But  we 


EVOLUTION  OF  THE  SCIENTIFIC  INVESTIGATOR     13 

may  regard  the  omission  as  a  mark  of  logical  purity 
and  rigor.  Had  the  real  or  supposed  advantages  of 
introducing  motion  into  geometrical  conceptions 
been  suggested  to  Euclid,  we  may  suppose  him  to 
have  replied  that  the  theorems  of  space  are  inde- 
pendent of  time;  that  the  idea  of  motion  neces- 
sarily implies  time,  and  that,  in  consequence,  to 
avail  ourselves  of  it  would  be  to  introduce  an  ex- 
traneous element  into  geometry. 

It  is  quite  possible  that  the  contempt  of  the  ancient 
philosophers  for  the  practical  application  of  their 
science,  which  has  continued  in  some  form  to  our 
own  time,  and  which  is  not  altogether  unwholesome, 
was  a  powerful  factor  in  the  same  direction.  The 
result  was  that,  in  keeping  geometry  pure  from 
ideas  which  did  not  belong  to  it,  it  failed  to  form 
what  might  otherwise  have  been  the  basis  of  physical 
science.  Its  founders  missed  the  discovery  that 
methods  similar  to  those  of  geometric  demonstra- 
tion can  be  extended  into  other  and  wider  fields 
than  that  of  space.  Thus,  not  only  the  develop- 
ment of  applied  geometry,  but  the  reduction  of  other 
conceptions  to  a  rigorous  mathematical  form  was 
indefinitely  postponed. 

Astronomy  is  necessarily  a  science  of  observation 
pure  and  simple,  in  which  experiment  can  have  no 
place  except  as  an  auxiliary.  The  vague  accounts 
of  striking  celestial  phenomena  handed  down  by  the 
priests  and  astrologers  of  antiquity  were  followed 
in  the  time  of  the  Greeks  by  observations  having, 


14  SIMON  NEWCOMB 

in  form  at  least,  a  rude  approach  to  precision, 
though  nothing  like  the  degree  of  precision  that  the 
astronomer  of  to-day  would  reach  with  the  naked 
eye,  aided  by  such  instruments  as  he  could  fashion 
from  the  tools  at  the  command  of  the  ancients. 

The  rude  observations  commenced  by  the  Baby- 
lonians were  continued  with  gradually  improving 
instruments — first  by  the  Greeks  and  afterwards  by 
the  Arabs — but  the  results  failed  to  afford  any 
insight  into  the  true  relation  of  the  earth  to  the  heav- 
ens. What  was  most  remarkable  in  this  failure  is 
that,  to  take  a  first  step  forward  which  would  have 
led  on  to  success,  no  more  was  necessary  than  a 
course  of  abstract  thinking  vastly  easier  than  that 
required  for  working  out  the  problems  of  geometry. 
That  space  is  infinite  is  an  unexpressed  axiom 
tactitly  assumed  by  Euclid  and  his  successors. 
If  this  were  combined  with  the  most  elementary 
consideration  of  the  properties  of  the  triangle,  it 
would  be  seen  that  a  body  of  any  given  size  could  be 
placed  at  such  a  distance  in  space  as  to  appear  to 
us  like  a  point.  H'ence,  a  body  as  large  as  our 
earth,  which  was  known  to  be  a  globe  from  the  time 
that  the  ancient  Phoenicians  navigated  the  Mediter- 
ranean, if  placed  in  the  heavens  at  a  sufficient  dis- 
tance, would  look  like  a  star.  The  obvious  con- 
clusion that  the  stars  might  be  bodies  like  our 
globe,  shining  either  by  their  own  light  or  by  that 
of  the  sun,  would  have  been  a  first  step  to  the  under- 
Standing  of  the  true  system  of  the  world. 


EVOLUTION  OF  THE  SCIENTIFIC  INVESTIGATOR     15 

There  is  historical  evidence  that  this  deduction 
did  not  wholly  escape  the  Greek  thinkers.  It  is 
true  that  the  critical  student  will  assign  little  weight 
to  the  current  belief  that  the  vague  theory  of  Pytha- 
goras— that  fire  was  at  the  center  of  all  things — 
implies  a  conception  of  the  heliocentric  theory  of 
the  solar  system.  But  the  testimony  of  Archimedes, 
confused  though  it  is  in  form,  leaves  no  serious  doubt 
that  Aristarchus  of  Samos  not  only  propounded  the 
view  that  the  earth  revolves  both  on  its  own  axis 
and  around  the  sun,  but  that  he  correctly  removed 
the  great  stumbling-block  in  the  way  of  this  theory 
by  adding  that  the  distance  of  the  fixed  stars  was 
infinitely  greater  than  the  dimensions  of  the  earth's 
orbit.  Even  the  world  of  philosophy  was  not  yet 
ready  for  this  conception,  and,  so  far  from  seeing 
the  reasonableness  of  the  explanation,  we  find 
Ptolemy  arguing  against  the  rotation  of  the 
earth  on  grounds  which  careful  observations  of  the 
phenomena  around  him  would  have  shown  to  be 
ill-founded. 

Physical  science,  if  we  may  apply  that  term  to 
an  uncoordinated  body  of  facts,  was  successfully 
cultivated  from  the  earliest  times.  Something  must 
have  been  known  of  the  properties  of  metals,  and  the 
art  of  extracting  them  from  their  ores  must  have 
been  practiced  from  the  time  that  coins  and  medals 
were  first  stamped.  The  properties  of  the  most 
common  compounds  were  discovered  by  alchemists 
in  their  vain  search  for  the  philosopher's  stone,  but 


16  SIMON  NEWCOMB 


no  actual  progress  worthy  of  the  name  rewarded  the 
practitioners  of  the  black  art. 

Perhaps  the  first  approach  to  a  correct  method  was 
that  of  Archimedes,  who  by  much  thinking  worked 
out  the  law  of  the  lever,  reached  the  conception  of 
the  center  of  gravity,  and  demonstrated  the  first 
principles  of  hydrostatics.  It  is  remarkable  that  he 
did  not  extend  his  researches  into  the  phenomena  of 
motion,  whether  spontaneous  or  produced  by  force. 
The  stationary  condition  of  the  human  intellect  is 
most  strikingly  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  not  until 
the  time  of  Leonardo  da  Vinci  was  any  substantial 
advance  made  on  his  discovery.  To  sum  up  in 
one  sentence  the  most  characteristic  feature  of 
ancient  and  mediaeval  science,  we  see  a  notable 
contrast  between  the  precision  of  thought  implied 
in  the  construction  and  demonstration  of  geometrical 
theorems  and  the  vague  indefinite  character  of  the 
ideas  of  natural  phenomena,  a  contrast  which  did 
not  disappear  until  the  foundations  of  modern 
science  began  to  be  laid. 

We  should  miss  the  most  essential  point  of  the 
difference  between  mediaeval  and  modern  learn- 
ing if  we  looked  upon  it  as  mainly  a  difference 
either  in  the  precision  or  the  amount  of  knowledge. 
The  development  of  both  of  these  qualities  would, 
under  any  circumstances,  have  been  slow  and 
gradual,  but  sure.  We  can  hardly  suppose  that  any 
one  generation,  or  even  any  one  century,  would  have 
seen  the  complete  substitution  of  exact  for  inexact 


EVOLUTION  OF  THE  SCIENTIFIC  INVESTIGATOR     17 

ideas.  Slowness  of  growth  is  as  inevitable  in  the 
case  of  knowledge  as  in  that  of  a  growing  organism. 
The  most  essential  point  of  difference  is  one  of  those 
seemingly  slight  ones,  the  importance  of  which  we 
are  too  apt  to  overlook.  It  was  like  the  drop  of 
blood  in  the  wrong  place,  which  someone  has  told 
us  makes  all  the  difference  between  a  philosopher  and 
a  maniac.  It  was  all  the  difference  between  a 
living  tree  and  a  dead  one,  between  an  inert  mass  and 
a  growing  organism.  The  transition  of  knowledge 
from  the  dead  to  the  living  form  must,  in  any  com- 
plete review  of  the  subject,  be  looked  upon  as  the 
really  great  event  of  modern  times.  Before  this 
event  the  intellect  was  bound  down  by  a  scholas- 
ticism which  regarded  knowledge  as  a  rounded  whole, 
the  parts  of  which  were  written  in  books  and  carried 
in  the  minds  of  learned  men.  The  student  was 
taught  from  the  beginning  of  his  work  to  look 
upon  authority  as  the  foundation  of  his  beliefs. 
The  older  the  authority,  the  greater  the  weight 
it  carried.  So  effective  was  this  teaching  that  it 
seems  never  to  have  occurred  to  individual  men 
that  they  had  all  the  opportunities  of  discovering 
truth  ever  enjoyed  by  Aristotle,  with  the  added 
advantage  of  all  his  knowledge  to  begin  with.  Ad- 
vanced as  was  the  development  of  formal  logic, 
the  practical  logic  was  wanting  which  could 
see  that  the  last  of  a  series  of  authorities,  every 
one  of  which  rested  on  those  which  preceded 
it,  could  never  form  a  surer  foundation  for  any 


18  SIMON  NEWCOMB 


doctrine  than  that  supplied  by  its  original  pro- 
pounder. 

The  result  of  this  view  of  knowledge  was  that, 
although  during  the  fifteen  centuries  following  the 
death  of  the  geometer  of  Syracuse  great  universities 
were  founded  at  which  generations  of  professors 
expounded  all  the  learning  of  their  time,  neither 
professor  nor  student  ever  suspected  what  latent 
possibilities  for  good  were  concealed  in  the  most 
familiar  operations  of  Nature.  Everyone  felt  the 
wind  blow,  saw  water  boil,  and  heard  the  thunder 
crash,  but  never  thought  of  investigating  the  forces 
here  at  play.  Up  to  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth 
century  the  most  acute  observer  could  scarcely  have 
seen  the  dawn  of  a  new  era. 

In  view  of  this  state  of  things,  it  must  be  regarded 
as  one  of  the  most  remarkable  facts  in  evolutionary 
history  that  four  or  five  men,  whose  mental  consti- 
tution was  either  typical  of  the  new  order  of  things, 
or  who  were  powerful  agents  in  bringing  it  about, 
were  all  born  during  the  fifteenth  century,  four  of 
them  at  least  at  so  nearly  the  same  time  as  to  be 
contemporaries. 

Leonardo  da  Vinci,  whose  artistic  genius  has 
charmed  succeeding  generations,  was  also  the  first 
practical  engineer  of  his  time,  and  the  first  man 
after  Archimedes  to  make  a  substantial  advance 
in  developing  the  laws  of  motion.  That  the 
world  was  not  prepared  to  make  use  of  his 
scientific  discoveries  does  not  detract  from  the 


EVOLUTION  OF  THE  SCIENTIFIC  INVESTIGATOR     19 

significance  which  must  attach  to  the  period  of  his 
birth. 

Shortly  after  him  was  born  the  great  navigator 
whose  bold  spirit  was  to  make  known  a  new  world, 
thus  giving  to  commercial  enterprise  that  impetus 
which  was  so  powerful  an  agent  in  bringing  about  a 
revolution  in  the  thoughts  of  men. 

The  birth  of  Columbus  was  soon  followed  by  that 
of  Copernicus,  the  first  after  Aristarchus  to  demon- 
strate the  true  system  of  the  world.  In  him  more 
than  in  any  of  his  contemporaries  do  we  see  the 
struggle  between  the  old  forms  of  thought  and  the 
new.  It  seems  almost  pathetic,  and  is  certainly 
most  suggestive  of  the  general  view  of  knowledge 
taken  at  this  time  that,  instead  of  claiming  credit 
for  bringing  to  light  great  truths  before  unknown, 
he  made  a  labored  attempt  to  show  that  after  all 
there  was  nothing  really  new  in  his  system,  which  he 
claimed  to  date  from  Pythagoras  and  Philolaus. 
In  this  connection  it  is  curious  that  he  makes  no 
mention  of  Aristarchus,  who,  I  think,  will  be  regarded 
by  conservative  historians  as  his  only  demonstrated 
predecessor.  To  the  hold  of  the  older  ideas  upon 
his  mind  we  must  attribute  the  fact  that  in  con- 
structing his  system  he  took  great  pains  to  make  as 
little  change  as  possible  in  ancient  conceptions. 

Luther,  the  greatest  thought  stirrer  of  them  all, 
practically  of  the  same  generation  with  Copernicus, 
Leonardo,  and  Columbus,  does  not  come  in  as  a 
scientific  investigator,  but  as  the  great  loosener  of 


20  SIMON  NEWCOMB 


chains  which  had  so  fettered  the  intellect  of  men 
that  they  dared  not  think  otherwise  than  as  the 
authorities  thought. 

Almost  coeval  with  the  advent  of  these  intellects 
was  the  invention  of  printing  with  movable  type. 
Gutenberg  was  born  during  the  first  decade  of  the 
century,  and  his  associates  and  others  credited  with 
the  invention  not  many  years  afterwards.  If  we 
accept  the  principle  on  which  I  am  basing  my  argu- 
ment, that  we  should  assign  the  first  place  to  the 
birth  of  those  psychic  agencies  which  started  men 
on  new  lines  of  thought,  then  surely  was  the  fifteenth 
the  wonderful  century. 

Let  us  not  forget  that,  in  assigning  the  actors  then 
born  to  their  places,  we  are  not  narrating  history, 
but  studying  a  special  phase  of  evolution.  It  matters 
not  for  us  that  no  university  invited  Leonardo 
to  its  halls,  and  that  his  science  was  valued  by  his 
contemporaries  only  as  an  adjunct  to  the  art  of  engi- 
neering. The  great  fact  still  is  that  he  was  the 
first  of  mankind  to  propound  laws  of  motion.  It  is 
not  for  anything  in  Luther's  doctrines  that  he  finds 
a  place  in  our  scheme.  No  matter  for  us  whether 
they  were  sound  or  not.  What  he  did  toward  the 
evolution  of  the  scientific  investigator  was  to  show 
by  his  example  that  a  man  might  question  the 
best  established  and  most  venerable  authority 
and  still  live,  still  preserve  his  intellectual  integrity, 
still  command  a  hearing  from  nations  and  their 
rulers.  It  matters  not  for  us  whether  Columbus 


EVOLUTION  OF  THE  SCIENTIFIC  INVESTIGATOR    21 

ever  knew  that  he  had  discovered  a  new  continent. 
His  work  was  to  teach  that  neither  hydra,  chimera, 
nor  abyss — neither  divine  injunction  nor  infernal 
machination — was  in  the  way  of  men  visiting  every 
part  of  the  globe,  and  that  the  problem  of  conquer- 
ing the  world  reduced  itself  to  one  of  sails  and  rigging, 
hull  and  compass.  The  better  part  of  Copernicus 
was  to  direct  man  to  a  point  of  view  whence  he  should 
see  that  the  heavens  were  of  like  matter  with  the 
earth.  All  this  done,  the  acorn  was  planted  from 
which  the  oak  of  our  civilization  should  spring. 
The  mad  quest  for  gold  which  followed  the  discovery 
of  Columbus,  the  questionings  which  absorbed  the 
attention  of  the  learned,  the  indignation  excited  by 
the  seeming  vagaries  of  a  Paracelsus,  the  fear  and 
trembling  lest  the  strange  doctrine  of  Copernicus 
should  undermine  the  faith  of  centuries,  were  all 
helps  to  the  germination  of  the  seed — stimuli  to 
thought  which  urged  it  on  to  explore  the  new  fields 
opened  up  to  its  occupation.  This  given,  all  that 
has  since  followed  came  out  in  regular  order  of 
development,  and  need  be  here  considered  only  in 
those  phases  having  a  special  relation  to  the  purpose 
of  our  present  meeting. 

So  slow  was  the  growth  at  first  that  the  sixteenth 
century  may  scarcely  have  recognized  the  inaugura- 
tion of  a  new  era.  Torricelli  and  Benedetti  were 
of  the  third  generation  after  Leonardo,  and  Galileo, 
the  first  to  make  a  substantial  advance  upon  his 
theory,  was  born  more  than  a  century  after  him. 


22  SIMON  NEWCOMB 


In  a  generation  there  appeared  only  two  or  three 
men  who,  working  alone,  could  make  real  progress 
in  discovery,  and  even  these  could  do  little  in  leaven- 
ing the  minds  of  their  fellowmen  with  the  new 
ideas. 

Up  to  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century  an 
agent  which  all  experience  since  that  time  shows  to 
be  necessary  to  the  most  productive  intellectual 
activity  was  wanting.  This  was  the  attrition  of 
like  minds,  making  suggestions  to  each  other,  criti- 
cising, comparing,  and  reasoning.  This  element  was 
introduced  by  the  organization  of  the  Royal  Society 
of  London  and  the  Academy  of  Sciences  of  Paris. 

The  members  of  these  two  bodies  seem  like  in- 
genious youth  suddenly  thrown  into  a  new  world 
of  interesting  objects,  the  purposes  and  relations  of 
which  they  had  to  discover.  The  novelty  of  the 
situation  is  strikingly  shown  in  the  questions  which 
occupied  the  minds  of  the  incipient  investigators. 
One  natural  result  of  British  maritime  enterprise 
was  that  the  aspirations  of  the  Fellows  of  the  Royal 
Society  were  not  confined  to  any  continent  or  hemi- 
sphere. Inquiries  were  sent  all  the  way  to  Batavia 
to  know  "  whether  there  be  a  hill  in  Sumatra 
which  burneth  continually  and  a  fountain  which 
runneth  pure  balsam."  The  astronomical  precision 
with  which  it  seemed  possible  that  physiological 
operations  might  go  on  was  evinced  by  the  inquiry 
whether  the  Indians  can  so  prepare  the  stupefying 
herb  Datura  that  "they  make  it  lie  several  days, 


EVOLUTION  OF  THE  SCIENTIFIC  INVESTIGATOR     23 

months,  years,  according  as  they  will,  in  a  man's 
body  without  doing  him  any  harm,  and  at  the  end 
kill  him  without  missing  an  hour's  time."  Of 
this  continent  one  of  the  inquiries  was  whether  there 
be  a  tree  in  Mexico  that  yields  water,  wine,  vinegar, 
milk,  honey,  wax,  thread,  and  needles. 

Among  the  problems  before  the  Paris  Academy 
of  Sciences  those  of  physiology  and  biology  took  a 
prominent  place.  The  distillation  of  compounds 
had  long  been  practiced,  and  the  fact  that  the  more 
spirituous  elements  of  certain  substances  were  thus 
separated  naturally  led  to  the  question  whether  the 
essential  essences  of  life  might  not  be  discoverable 
in  the  same  way.  In  order  that  all  might  participate 
in  the  experiments,  they  were  conducted  in  open 
session  of  the  Academy,  thus  guarding  against  the 
danger  of  any  one  member  obtaining  for  his  exclu- 
sive personal  use  a  possible  elixir  of  life.  A  wide 
range  of  the  animal  and  vegetable  kingdom,  in- 
cluding cats,  dogs,  and  birds  of  various  species, 
was  thus  analyzed.  The  practice  of  dissection  was 
introduced  on  a  large  scale.  That  of  the  cadaver 
of  an  elephant  occupied  several  sessions,  and  was  of 
such  interest  that  the  monarch  himself  was  a  spec- 
tator. 

To  the  same  epoch  with  the  formation  and  first 
work  of  these  two  bodies  belongs  the  invention  of  a 
mathematical  method  which  in  its  importance  to 
the  advance  of  exact  science  may  be  classed  with  the 
invention  of  the  alphabet  in  its  relation  to  the  prog- 


24  SIMON  NEWCOMB 


ress  of  society  at  large.  The  use  of  algebraic  symbols 
to  represent  quantities  had  its  origin  before  the 
commencement  of  the  new  era,  and  gradually  grew 
into  a  highly  developed  form  during  the  first  two 
centuries  of  that  era.  But  this  method  could  rep- 
resent quantities  only  as  fixed.  It  is  true  that  the 
elasticity  inherent  in  the  use  of  such  symbols 
permitted  their  being  applied  to  any  and  every 
quantity;  yet,  in  any  one  application,  the  quantity 
was  considered  as  fixed  and  definite.  But  most 
of  the  magnitudes  of  Nature  are  in  a  state  of  con- 
tinual variation;  indeed,  since  all  motion  is  varia- 
tion, the  latter  is  a  universal  characteristic  of  all 
phenomena.  No  serious  advance  could  be  made  in 
the  application  of  algebraic  language  to  the  expres- 
sion of  physical  phenomena  until  it  could  be  so 
extended  as  to  express  variation  in  quantities,  as 
well  as  the  quantities  themselves.  This  extension, 
worked  out  independently  by  Newton  and  Leibnitz, 
may  be  classed  as  the  most  fruitful  of  conceptions 
in  exact  science.  With  it  the  way  was  opened  for 
the  unimpeded  and  continually  accelerated  progress 
of  the  two  last  centuries. 

The  feature  of  this  period  which  has  the  closest 
relation  to  the  purpose  of  our  coming  together  is 
the  seemingly  endless  subdivision  of  knowledge 
into  specialties,  many  of  which  are  becoming  so 
minute  and  so  isolated  that  they  seem  to  have  no 
interest  for  any  but  their  few  pursuers.  Happily 
science  itself  has  afforded  a  corrective  for  its  own 


EVOLUTION  OF  THE  SCIENTIFIC  INVESTIGATOR    25 

tendency  in  this  direction.  The  careful  thinker 
will  see  that  in  these  seemingly  divergent  branches 
common  elements  and  common  principles  are  com- 
ing more  and  more  to  light.  There  is  an  increasing 
recognition  of  methods  of  research  and  of  deduction 
which  are  common  to  large  branches  or  to  the  whole 
of  science.  We  are  more  and  more  recognizing  the 
principle  that  progress  in  knowledge  implies  its 
reduction  to  more  exact  forms,  and  the  expression 
of  its  ideas  in  language  more  or  less  mathematical. 
The  problem  before  the  organizers  of  this  Congress 
was,  therefore,  to  bring  the  sciences  together  and  to 
seek  for  the  unity  which  we  believe  underlies  their 
infinite  diversity. 

The  assembling  of  such  a  body  as  now  fills  this 
hall  was  scarcely  possible  in  any  preceding  genera- 
tion, and  is  made  possible  now  only  through  the 
agency  of  science  itself.  It  differs  from  all  preceding 
international  meetings  in  the  universality  of  its 
scope,  which  aims  to  include  the  whole  of  knowl- 
edge. It  is  also  unique  in  that  none  but  leaders 
have  been  sought  out  as  members.  It  is  unique 
in  that  so  many  lands  have  delegated  their  choicest 
intellects  to  carry  on  its  work.  They  come  from  the 
country  to  which  our  Republic  is  indebted  for  a 
third  of  its  territory,  including  the  ground  on  which 
we  stand;  from  the  land  which  has  taught  us  that  the 
most  scholarly  devotion  to  the  languages  and  learn- 
ing of  the  cloistered  past  is  compatible  with  leader- 
ship in  the  practical  application  of  modern  science 


26  SIMON  NEWCOMB 


to  the  arts  of  life;  from  the  island  whose  language 
and  literature  have  found  a  new  field  and  a  vigorous 
growth  in  this  region;  from  the  last  seat  of  the 
Holy  Roman  Empire;  from  the  country  which, 
remembering  a  monarch  who  made  an  astronomical 
observation  at  the  Greenwich  Observatory,  has 
enthroned  science  in  one  of  the  highest  places  in  its 
government;  from  the  peninsula  so  learned  that  we 
have  invited  one  of  its  scholars  to  come  to  tell  us 
of  our  own  language;  from  the  land  which  gave 
birth  to  Leonardo,  Galileo,  Torricelli,  Columbus, 
Volta — what  an  array  of  immortal  names! — from 
the  little  republic  of  glorious  history  which,  breeding 
men  rugged  as  its  eternal  snow  peaks,  has  yet  been 
the  seat  of  scientific  investigation  since  the  day  of  the 
Bernoullis;  from  the  land  whose  heroic  dwellers 
did  not  hesitate  to  use  the  ocean  itself  to  protect  it 
against  invaders,  and  which  now  makes  us  marvel 
at  the  amount  of  erudition  compressed  within  its 
little  area;  from  the  nation  across  the  Pacific,  which, 
by  half  a  century  of  unequaled  progress  in  the  arts 
of  life,  has  made  an  important  contribution  to 
evolutionary  science  through  demonstrating  the 
falsity  of  the  theory  that  the  most  ancient  races  are 
doomed  to  be  left  in  the  rear  of  the  advancing  age — 
in  a  word,  from  every  great  center  of  intellectual 
activity  on  the  globe  I  see  before  me  eminent  repre- 
sentatives of  that  world  advance  in  knowledge  which 
we  have  met  to  celebrate.  May  we  not  confidently 
hope  that  the  discussions  of  such  an  assemblage 


EVOLUTION  OF  THE  SCIENTIFIC  INVESTIGATOR    27 

will  prove  pregnant  of  a  future  for  science  which 
shall  outshine  even  its  brilliant  past? 

Gentlemen  and  scholars  all,  you  do  not  visit  our 
shores  to  find  great  collections  in  which  centuries 
of  humanity  have  given  expression  on  canvas  and 
in  marble  to  their  hopes,  fears,  and  aspirations. 
Nor  do  you  expect  institutions  and  buildings  hoary 
with  age.  But  as  you  feel  the  vigor  latent  in  the 
fresh  air  of  these  expansive  prairies,  which  has  col- 
lected the  products  of  human  genius  by  which  we  are 
here  surrounded,  and,  I  may  add,  brought  us  to- 
gether; as  you  study  the  institutions  which  we  have 
founded  for  the  benefit  not  only  of  our  own  people, 
but  of  humanity  at  large;  as  you  meet  the  men  who, 
in  the  short  space  of  one  century,  have  transformed 
this  valley  from  a  savage  wilderness  into  what  it  is 
to-day,  then  may  you  find  compensation  for  the  want 
of  a  past  like  yours  by  seeing  with  prophetic  eye  a 
future  world  power  of  which  this  region  shall  be  the 
seat.  If  such  is  to  be  the  outcome  of  the  institutions 
which  we  are  now  building  up,  then  may  your 
present  visit  be  a  blessing  both  to  your  posterity  and 
ours  by  making  that  power  one  for  good  to  all 
mankind.  Your  deliberations  will  help  to  demon- 
strate to  us  and  to  the  world  at  large  that  the  reign 
of  law  must  supplant  that  of  brute  force  in  the 
relations  of  nations,  just  as  it  has  supplanted  it 
in  the  relations  of  individuals.  You  will  help  to 
show  that  the  war  which  science  is  now  waging 
against  the  sources  of  diseases,  pain,  and  misery 


28  SIMON  NEWCOMB 


offers  an  even  nobler  field  for  the  exercise  of  heroic 
qualities  than  can  that  of  battle.  We  hope  that 
when,  after  your  too  fleeting  sojourn  in  our  midst, 
you  return  to  your  own  shores  you  will  long  feel  the 
influence  of  the  new  air  you  have  breathed  in  an 
infusion  of  increased  vigor  in  pursuing  your  varied 
labors.  And  if  a  new  impetus  is  thus  given  to  the 
great  intellectual  movement  of  the  past  century, 
resulting  not  only  in  promoting  the  unification  of 
knowledge,  but  in  widening  its  fields  through  new 
combinations  of  effort  on  the  part  of  its  votaries, 
the  projectors,  organizers,  and  supporters  of  this 
Congress  of  Arts  and  Science  will  be  justified  of  their 
labors. 


II 

THE  RELATION  OF  PURE  SCIENCE  TO 
ENGINEERING 

SIR  JOSEPH  JOHN  THOMSON 

[As  Simon  Newcomb  indicates  in  his  address,  the  material 
improvements  which  society  accepts  as  a  matter  of  course, 
or  as  due  to  the  law  of  supply  and  demand,  are  the  result  of 
investigations  undertaken  without  thought  of  pecuniary  reward. 
On  the  obvious  relationship  between  pure  and  applied  science, 
a  relationship  which  the  engineer  is  sometimes  apt  to  forget, 
there  can  be  no  better  authority  than  Sir  Joseph  John  Thomson 
(1856-  ),  who  is  an  engineer  by  training  and  a  physicist  by 
profession.  Educated  at  Owens  College,  now  the  Victoria 
University  of  Manchester,  he  became  Cavendish  Profes- 
sor of  Experimental  Physics  at  Cambridge,  and  Professor  of 
Physics  in  the  Royal  Institution.  Of  his  contributions  to  science 
the  most  important  are  the  ionic  theory  of  electricity,  the 
electrical  theory  of  the  inertia  of  matter,  and  the  conclusions 
resulting  from  a  long  series  of  theoretical  and  experimental 
investigations  of  radioactivity.  Some  idea  of  the  epoch-making 
character  of  these  developments  may  be  gathered  from  the  fact 
that,  in  addition  to  medals  granted  by  the  Royal  Society  and 
the  Smithsonian  Institution,  he  was  awarded  the  Nobel  Prize  for 
Physics  in  1906.  His  treatises  on  electrical  phenomena  are 
well-known.  The  following  article  is  an  abstract  of  an  address 
delivered  before  the  Junior  Institution  of  Engineers.  It  is 
based  on  the  report  in  the  Electrical  Engineer  of  November  25, 
1910.] 

Though  I  am  not  an  engineer,  I  started  life  with 
the  intention  of  being  one,  and  studied  engineering 
for  some  years  at  Owens  College,  Manchester,  under 

29 


30  SIR  JOSEPH  JOHN  THOMSON 

one  of  the  most  profound  and  original  engineers 
this  country  has  produced — Professor  Osborne 
Reynolds.  Indeed,  I  found  the  other  day,  when 
consulting  the  Calendar  of  the  University  of  Man- 
chester in  the  hope  of  discovering  something  that 
would  justify  my  presence  here  this  evening,  that  I 
am  the  possessor  of  a  certificate  of  proficiency  in 
engineering.  I  had  to  abandon  the  profession 
however,  because  the  usual  method  of  entering  it 
was  to  become  an  apprentice  to  some  well-known 
firm  which  charged  heavy  fees  for  the  privilege. 
Owing  to  the  death  of  my  father  before  I  had  com- 
pleted my  course  at  college,  I  was  not  in  a  position 
to  pay  the  necessary  fees,  and  had  to  direct  my 
attention  to  other  pursuits. 

Though  I  am  afraid  that  any  knowledge  of  engi- 
neering I  ever  possessed  has  long  since  evaporated, 
my  short  training  for  that  profession  has  had  a 
direct  influence  on  my  work  in  physics  and  on  the 
way  I  regard  physical  phenomena.  I  never  feel 
contented  nor  comfortable  with  the  representation  of 
an  effect  by  systems  of  equations,  valuable  as  these 
are  for  many  purposes;  the  stifled  instincts  of  the 
engineer — for  I  suppose  it  is  that — make  me  restless 
until  I  can  imagine  some  kind  of  mechanical  model 
which  possesses  properties  analogous  to  those  of  the 
phenomenon  under  consideration. 

The  title  of  my  address  this  evening,  '  The 
Relation  of  Pure  Science  to  Engineering,"  is  one  in 


RELATION  OF  PURE  SCIENCE  TO  ENGINEERING    31 

which  the  nomenclature  requires  perhaps  some  ex- 
planation. The  distinction  between  pure  science  and 
engineering  is  one  not  of  method  but  of  aim.  The 
methods  employed  by  the  physicist  and  the  qualities 
of  mind  called  into  play  in  his  investigations  are, 
to  a  very  large  extent,  the  same  as  those  used  by 
the  engineer  in  the  higher  and  more  pioneering 
branches  of  engineering.  It  is  the  aim  that  is 
different.  The  physicist  endeavors  to  discover  new 
properties  of  matter,  new  physical  phenomena,  for 
the  sake  of  extending  his  knowledge  of  Nature,  and 
without  any  thought  as  to  their  utility  or  the 
possibility  of  their  application  to  the  service  of  man. 
Faraday,  when  he  discovered  electromagnetic  in- 
duction, was  not  thinking  of  the  electric  light,  nor 
electric  traction,  nor  the  foundation  of  a  great  indus- 
try; he  was  trying  to  learn  something  about  elec- 
tricity. And  so  it  is  with  all  great  discoveries. 
The  joy  of  discovering  something  new  and  true  is 
so  great  that  other  things  sink  into  insignificance.  I 
do  not  suppose  for  a  moment  that  the  pleasure  which 
Lord  Rayleigh  gets  from  having  discovered  argon 
is  at  all  diminished  by  the  fact  that  argon  has  not 
yet  received  any  commercial  application.1 

1  Argon  is  now  used  commercially  in  the  tungar  rectifier,  a  device  for 
rectifying  alternating  current.  As  this  rectifier  is  steady  and  economi- 
cal, it  has  superseded  the  mercury  arc  rectifier  formerly  used  in  charging 
storage  batteries. 

Another  case  in  point  is  the  utilization  of  helium.  Before  1916  not 
more  than  one  hundred  cubic  feet  had  been  separated.  When  the  armis- 
tice was  signed,  147,000  cubic  feet  were  awaiting  shipment  to  Europe 
for  use  in  dirigible  balloons.  See  the  Journal  of  Industrial  Chemistry, 
II,  148-153  (1919).— Editor. 


32  SIR  JOSEPH  JOHN  THOMSON 

It  is  not  the  business  of  the  physicist  in  his  re- 
searches to  concern  himself  at  all  with  their  utility; 
utility  can  very  well  take  care  of  itself,  or  be  left 
to  others  to  develop.  It  is  a  striking  feature  in  the 
history  of  science  that  almost  every  advance  in 
pure  physics  has  been  turned  to  account  by  the 
engineer,  the  manufacturer,  or  the  doctor.  To 
take  an  example.  Could  anything  be,  at  first  sight, 
more  remote  from  practical  application  than  the 
study  of  the  passage  of  electricity  through  gases? 
Beautiful  and  interesting  though  the  phenomena 
with  which  it  has  to  deal  undoubtedly  are,  they 
seemed  for  long  remote  from  any  practical  applica- 
tion.1 Yet  it  is  to  the  study  of  these  phenomena 
that  we  owe  the  discovery  of  Rontgen  rays,  which 
are  now  throughout  the  world  used  for  the  allevia- 
tion of  human  suffering.  Again,  the  purely  mathe- 
matical theory  of  the  transmission  of  electrical  waves 
along  conductors,  as  developed  by  Mr.  Heaviside, 
was  the  origin  of  Pupin's  successful  system  of  long- 
distance telephony.  No  one  can  foresee  in  its  early 
stages  the  possibilities  which  may  be  latent  in  any 
scientific  discovery. 

Nothing  could,  I  think,  be  more  disastrous  to  the 
progress  of  engineering  than  that  workers  in  pure 
science  should  hamper  themselves  by  considera- 
tions as  to  the  utility  of  their  work,  or  confine  their 
attention  to  points  which  have  an  obvious  practical 

1  Practical  applications  are  to  be  found  in  the  receivers  for  the  wire- 
less telephone  and  telegraph, — the  audion,  the  pliotron,  and  the  kenetron 
tubes. — Editor. 


RELATION  OF  PURE  SCIENCE  TO  ENGINEERING    33 

application.  With  such  limitations,  details  in  exist- 
ing processes  might  be  improved,  but  the  great 
advances  which  have  revolutionized  industries  would 
be  lacking.  If  this  policy  had  been  pursued  in  the 
past,  we  should  still  be  travelling  by  stage  coaches, 
though  doubtless  these  would  have  been  greatly 
improved  since  the  time  of  our  ancestors. 

The  province  of  applied  science,  of  engineering, 
is  to  survey  the  facts  known  to  science,  and  to 
select  those  which  seem  to  have  in  them  the  possi- 
bilities of  industrial  application;  to  study  and 
develop  them  from  this  point  of  view.  This  de- 
velopment, I  think,  can  best  be  accomplished  in 
laboratories  attached  to  works  engaged  in  active 
trade.  Here  are  opportunities  for  testing  the  results 
on  a  commercial  scale;  here  is  available  the  tech- 
nical knowledge  of  detail  which  often  means  the 
difference  between  success  and  failure;  and  here, 
too,  are  probably  available  greater  supplies  of  money 
and  greater  incentives  to  success  than  are  at  the 
disposal  of  government,  municipal,  or  university 
bodies. 

A  closer  connection  with  pure  science  would  be 
of  the  greatest  service  to  engineering  and  commerce 
in  this  country.  Great  strides  in  this  direction  have 
been  made  in  recent  years;  but  we  are,  I  think, 
still  behind  Germany  in  the  importance  we  attach 
to  pure  science,  and  in  the  eagerness  with  which  new 
discoveries  are  applied  to  industrial  purposes.  The 


34  SIR  JOSEPH  JOHN  THOMSON 

case  of  the  aniline  dye  industry  has  been  made  the 
text  of  many  a  sermon,  but  we  have  not  yet  taken  the 
lesson  to  heart; l  for  it  is  easy  to  find  instances 
which  are  quite  parallel,  and  which  have  occurred 
within  the  last  few  months.  Let  me  give  you  one. 
To  judge  from  the  number  of  "thermos  flasks" 
one  meets  with,  and  the  prevalence  of  advertise- 
ments describing  their  virtues,  their  manufacture 
must  constitute  a  large  and  profitable  business.  I 
am  told,  however,  that  none  of  them  are  made  in 
England.  Yet  the  thermos  flask  is  an  English  in- 
vention; it  is  nothing  but  the  contrivance  known  to 
physicists  as  the  "  Dewar  vessel,"  a  double  vessel 
where  the  inside  is  separated  from  the  outside  by 
a  vacuum,  which  was  invented  by  Sir  James  Dewar 
for  the  purpose  of  storing  liquid  air  without  too 
much  evaporation.  Although  the  discovery  was  made 
in  England,  no  English  manufacturers  took  it  up, 
but  left  it  to  their  foreign  rivals  to  make  it  the  basis 
of  an  important  trade. 

The  spirit  I  should  like  to  see  spread  throughout 
industry  is  the  exact  antithesis  of  that  expressed  by 
the  saying,  "Oh,  that  is  very  well  in  theory,  but  it 
does  not  work  in  practice."  This  saying  is  really 
a  contradiction  in  terms;  for  if  the  theory  is  right, 
and  the  practice  is  right,  the  two  must  be  consistent. 
And  it  should  be  the  aim  of  workers  in  pure  and 

1  Recent  developments  have  made  the  United  States  independent  of 
the  German  dye  industry.  The  E.  I.  Dupont  de  Nemours  Company 
and  the  National  Aniline  Company  can  now  meet  the  demands  of  the 
American  market. — Editor. 


RELATION  OF  PURE   SCIENCE  TO  ENGINEERING    35 

applied  science  to  make  them  agree;  unless  they  do, 
something  is  wrong. 

To  unite  and  harmonize  these  two  essential  things, 
theory  and  practice,  should  be  the  mission  of  applied 
science.  I  have  mentioned  some  cases  in  which  the 
practical  application  lagged  behind  the  theory. 
The  converse  is,  however,  quite  as  common;  it  often 
happens  that  when  a  subject  is  applied  to  practical 
purposes,  and  tried  on  what  may  be  called  an  engi- 
neering scale,  it  develops  far  beyond  the  stage  it 
has  reached  in  the  laboratory  or  in  the  portfolio  of 
the  mathematician.  Practice,  as  in  the  case  of 
aviation  at  the  present  time,  outstrips  theory,  and 
progress  has  to  be  made  by  trying  one  thing  after 
another  until  something  is  found  which  is  successful. 
Multitudes  of  instances  where  this  has  occurred  could 
be  given.  To  take  only  two.  There  are  many  phe- 
nomena in  wireless  telegraphy  which  have  not  yet 
received  any  adequate  explanation,  and  there  are 
others  which,  though  now  understood,  were  not 
until  long  after  their  existence  had  been  discovered 
by  those  engaged  in  the  practical  development  of 
that  process.  Again,  from  what  I  remember  of  the 
lectures  on  chemistry  to  which  I  listened  more  than 
thirty  years  ago,  I  imagine  that  the  sulphuric  acid 
industry  was  in  full  vigor  before  chemists  were  agreed 
as  to  exactly  what  it  is  that  does  happen  when  that 
substance  is  being  manufactured.  These  are,  how- 
ever, just  the  cases  when  research  laboratories  in 
connection  with  works  may  render  most  efficient 


36  SIR  JOSEPH  JOHN  THOMSON 

aid,  and  where  investigations  skilfully  conducted  by 
scientific  workers  acquainted  with  the  results  met 
with  in  practice  may  lead  to  a  much  more  rapid 
development  of  the  subject  and  the  saving  of  large 
sums  of  money.  The  practical  man  in  this  case  is 
in  the  position  of  the  physicist  when  he  meets  with  a 
new  phenomenon  for  which  at  first  he  can  see  no  ex- 
planation; the  same  qualities  of  mind  are  required, 
and  though  the  scale  of  the  experiments  may  be 
different,  the  general  method  of  attack  will  be  much 
the  same  in  the  two  cases.  It  is  the  object  of  applied 
science  to  keep  theory  and  practice  at  the  same  level 
by  raising  the  one  underneath,  not  by  pulling  down 
the  one  above.  Theory  and  practice  do  better  work 
when  they  are  driven  abreast  than  in  tandem. 

The  more  intimate  the  relation  between  theory 
and  practice,  between  workers  in  pure  science  and 
those  engaged  in  the  application  of  science  to  the 
arts,  the  greater  will  be  the  opportunity  of  deepen- 
ing the  faith  in  science  of  the  practical  man  and  the 
reliance  he  places  on  its  conclusions  and  anticipa- 
tions. For  in  the  case  of  science  familiarity  breeds 
confidence  and  not  contempt.  I  admit  that  this 
confidence  does  not  come  at  once.  When  one  first 
begins  to  do  practical  work  in  the  laboratory,  and 
to  verify  by  experiments  the  principles  taught  in  the 
textbooks,  the  impression  one  derives  from  one's 
first  attempt  is  that  there  is  a  great  deal  of  truth  in 
the  saying  of  a  former  tutor  of  Trinity  College, 
that  the  principle  of  the  constancy  of  the  laws  of 


RELATION  OF  PURE  SCIENCE  TO  ENGINEERING    37 

Nature  was  never  discovered  in  a  laboratory.  A 
cynic,  too,  has  remarked  that  if  you  wish  to  believe 
in  the  laws  of  Nature,  never  try  an  experiment. 
These,  however,  are  only  the  feelings  of  the  novice, 
and  with  greater  experience  and  knowledge  of  prac- 
tical work  they  are  replaced  by  a  continually  in- 
creasing confidence  in  the  conclusions  drawn  from 
abstract  reasoning.  This  confidence  in  the  results 
obtained  by  scientific  reasoning  should,  I  imagine, 
be  an  almost  indispensable  qualification  for  the  engi- 
neer who  wishes  to  open  new  ground.  One  of 
the  most  conspicuous  examples  of  faith  in  science  I 
am  acquainted  with  is  the  discovery  of  artificial 
indigo.  It  is  said  that  the  Badische  Company 
spent  twenty  years  and  nearly  a  million  sterling 
on  the  solution  of  this  problem  before  they  suc- 
ceeded, and  before  they  got  any  pecuniary  return. 
From  the  few  opportunities  I  have  had  of  seeing 
anything  of  manufacturing  processes  in  different 
countries,  I  have  got  the  impression  that  faith  in 
the  results  of  pure  science  is  more  robust  in  Germany 
than  in  this  country;  that  here  we  cultivate  more 
exclusively  enterprises  which  ripen  quickly  and  yield 
an  immediate  return  upon  the  capital  invested. 

It  is  not  that  in  England  there  is,  among  the  leaders 
of  applied  science,  any  failure  to  recognize  the  im- 
portance of  science,  or  any  reluctance  to  use  it;  we 
are  fortunate  in  this  country  to  possess  many  con- 
spicuous examples  of  the  combination  of  pure  and 
applied  science.  It  is  rather  that  what  I  may  call 


38  SIR  JOSEPH  JOHN  THOMSON 

the  scientific  spirit  has  not  diffused  through  and 
influenced  the  bulk  of  our  industries  to  the  extent 
that  it  has  done  in  one  or  two  other  countries.  We 
have  never  lacked  pioneers  who  have  led  the  way 
in  the  application  of  science  to  industry;  we  have 
had  men  who,  like  Rankine,  have  made  engineering 
itself  a  science,  but  it  cannot,  I  think,  be  maintained 
that  science  plays  as  large  a  part  in  engineering  and 
industry  on  the  whole  here  as  it  does  in  Germany. 
How  is  this  to  be  altered  ?  No  doubt  a  most  potent 
influence  in  this  direction  will  come  when  it  is  realized 
more  fully  than  it  is  at  present  that  the  union  of 
science  and  industry  pays.  I  never  realized  myself 
how  prolific  this  union  is  so  fully  as  I  did  the  other 
day  when  I  was  travelling  from  Cologne  to  Berlin. 
After  leaving  Cologne  we  travelled  for  nearly  two 
hours  through  an  almost  uninterrupted  succession  of 
factories,  the  majority  of  them  showing  every  indi- 
cation of  having  been  built  within  the  last  few  years. 

Another  reason  for  the  comparative  neglect  of 
pure  science  in  engineering,  I  think,  is  that  the  train- 
ing in  that  subject  given  in  our  engineering  and 
technical  colleges  is  not  that  best  adapted  to  develop 
any  enthusiasm  for  it.  Economy  of  time  is  so  im- 
portant that  attention  is  paid  only  to  those  parts 
of  science  which  have  direct  application  to  present- 
day  practice  in  engineering  or  other  industries.  The 
result  is  that  the  student  gets  his  pure  science  in 
snippets,  and  that  it  seems  to  him  a  disconnected 


RELATION  OF  PURE  SCIENCE  TO  ENGINEERING    39 

bundle  of  facts  in  which  he  is  unable  to  feel  much 
interest.  Though  this  condition  is  bad  in  every 
subject,  its  results  are  especially  conspicuous  in 
mathematics.  The  language  of  mathematics  should 
be  as  familiar  to  the  engineer  as  his  mother  tongue; 
his  mathematics  should  be  a  part  of  himself,  and  he 
should  be  able  to  use  them  with  the  confidence  with 
which  a  good  workman  uses  his  tools.  If,  however, 
the  student's  training  in  mathematics  or  pure 
science  is  confined  to  those  parts  of  the  subject 
which  are  of  direct  practical  utility,  he  will  never 
acquire  this  confidence.  He  may  be  quite  able  to 
follow  the  mathematics  he  meets  with  in  the  course 
of  his  reading,  but  for  him  mathematics  will  never  be 
a  formidable  weapon  with  which  to  attack  new  prob- 
lems. If  you  cut  away  all  the  parts  of  a  science 
except  those  which  seem  to  have  immediate  practical 
application,  you  rob  it  of  its  beauty  and  vigor, 
and  make  it  exceedingly  uninteresting.  All  work 
and  no  play  make  Jack  a  dull  boy;  all  the  useful 
parts  of  a  science  and  nothing  else  make  a  desper- 
ately dull  subject. 

It  will,  I  know,  be  urged  that  the  curriculum  for 
engineering  students  is  already  so  overloaded  that  it 
is  impossible  to  find  time  for  a  fuller  study  of  science 
and  mathematics.  I  acknowledge  that  at  present 
this  is  true.  But  it  is  only  true  because  the  cur- 
riculum is  founded  on  the  truly  British  idea  that  our 
boys  are  not  expected  to  learn  anything  at  school. 
Most  of  the  work  in  the  courses  for  students  in  their 


40  SIR  JOSEPH  JOHN  THOMSON 

first  year,  and  some  of  that  in  the  second,  in  all  the 
engineering  schools  with  which  I  am  acquainted, 
is  of  a  kind  that  a  boy  might  well  be  expected  to 
do  at  school.  There  is  no  reason  why  a  boy  of 
eighteen  of  the  mental  calibre  which  would  justify 
his  becoming  an  engineer  should  not  have  a  good 
working  knowledge  of  the  calculus  and  the  ele- 
mentary parts  of  differential  equations,  and  have 
read  a  considerable  portion  of  dynamics.  This  could, 
I  am  convinced,  be  done  without  undue  specializa- 
tion, and  without  depriving  the  boy  of  the  literary 
training  which  is  essential  if  he  is  to  keep  his  sym- 
pathies wide  and  his  mind  receptive.  If  students 
entered  our  engineering  schools  prepared  up  to  this 
standard,  changes  could  be  made  which  would  widen 
their  interests  in  pure  science  and  tighten  their 
hold  upon  it. 

Though  I  regret  the  predominance  of  classics  in 
our  public  schools,  I  should  regret  still  more  any 
system  which  allowed  boys  to  restrict  their  studies 
entirely  to  scientific  subjects;  in  fact,  any  system 
which  involved  premature  specialization.  A  large 
part  of  the  success  of  an  engineer  depends  upon  his 
power  of  impressing  and  influencing  the  men  with 
whom  he  is  brought  into  contact.  Now,  of  all  the 
various  kinds  of  apparatus  with  which  one  has  to 
work,  man  is  by  far  the  most  sensitive,  the  most 
likely  to  get  out  of  order,  the  most  difficult  from 
which  to  get  results.  The  education  of  the  engineer 
ought  then  to  be  framed  so  as  to  develop  those 


RELATION  OF  PURE  SCIENCE  TO  ENGINEERING    41 

qualities  which  make  him,  in  the  highest  sense  of 
the  word,  a  man  of  the  world,  one  easy  to  go  on  with, 
one  with  whom  it  is  pleasant  to  deal;  to  make  him, 
in  fact,  a  man  with  wide  sympathies  and  interests. 
These  qualities  are  much  more  likely  to  be  developed 
by  a  training  which  includes  a  considerable  study  of 
literature  than  by  one  which  is  severely  restricted  to 
scientific  or  technical  subjects. 

What  seems  to  me  by  far  the  most  important  thing 
to  aim  at  in  the  school  training  of  the  boy  who  is 
to  be  an  engineer  is  not  that  he  should  be  taught  a 
number  of  facts  about  the  various  branches  of 
science;  that  is  a  matter  of  slight  importance  at  this 
stage  of  his  career.  What  is  important  is  that  he 
should  be  trained  in  the  scientific  habit  of  mind, 
which,  after  all,  is  nothing  but  organized  and  directed 
common  sense.  The  training  that  is  wanted  is  one 
that  will  train  the  boy  to  think  about  things,  one 
that  will  train  him  so  that  he  will  get  the  whole 
weight  of  his  mind  on  the  problem  he  is  tackling.  If 
he  has  got  this  power,  it  is  not,  I  think,  a  matter  of 
primary  importance  as  to  what  may  have  been  the 
nature  of  the  studies  by  which  he  has  attained  it. 
A  boy  who  has  this  power  is  far  more  likely  to  make 
a  good  engineer,  even  though  his  training  has  been 
wholly  classical,  than  one  without  it,  even  though 
he  has  studied  the  whole  gamut  of  the  sciences. 

Another  point  to  which  I  attach  great  importance 
in  the  early  training  of  the  engineer,  and  also  of  the 
physicist,  is  that  he  should  have  a  good  drilling  in 


42  SIR  JOSEPH  JOHN  THOMSON 

experimental  mechanics,  and  make  many  simple 
experiments  on  the  properties  of  a  body  in  motion. 
I  should  encourage  him  to  have  a  little  workshop 
of  his  own,  not  so  much  that  he  may  acquire  skill 
in  the  use  of  tools  as  that  by  familiarity  with  matter 
in  motion  and  machines  he  may  cultivate  the 
mechanical  instinct.  By  this  I  mean  the  power 
which  some  possess  of  feeling  instinctively  without 
conscious  reasoning  what  is  the  accurate  solution  of 
some  mechanical  problem.  This  faculty,  which  is 
obviously  one  of  great  importance  to  engineers  and 
physicists  alike,  is  possessed  by  some  men  to  an 
astounding  degree.  It  was  said  by  Clerk  Maxwell's 
contemporaries  at  Cambridge  that  he  could  not  think 
wrongly  about  mechanical  problems  even  if  he  tried 
to  do  so.  I  have  heard  it  said  about  a  great  engineer 
that  you  never  feel  any  doubt  about  his  conclu- 
sions until  he  begins  to  give  his  reasons  for  them. 
This  instinct,  which  all  great  engineers  possess,  can 
be  developed  by  long  familiarity  with  mechanical 
studies.  Finally,  I  would  conclude  by  quoting  the 
words  of  one  who  can  speak  with  far  greater  authority 
than  I  on  any  question  connected  with  the  training 
of  engineers;  I  mean  Sir  Andrew  Noble.  "  Do  not," 
he  said,  "  be  too  utilitarian;  do  not  narrow  the 
search  for  knowledge  down  to  a  search  for  utilitarian 
knowledge,  for  knowledge  that  you  think  will  pay. 
Above  all  things,  pursue  knowledge." 


THE  TYPES  OF  ENGINEERING 
EDUCATION 


Ill 

TWO  KINDS  OF  EDUCATION  FOR 
ENGINEERS 

JOHN  BUTLER  JOHNSON 

[THE  two  phases  of  engineering  education  to  which  Sir  J.  J 
Thomson  refers  in  closing  are  discussed  with  admirable  clear- 
ness by  John  Butler  Johnson  (1850-1902).  No  one  has  con- 
trasted more  sharply  the  two  kinds  of  competency  essential  to 
success — Competency  to  Serve,  and  Competency  to  Appreciate  and 
Enjoy.  Of  both  types  Johnson  was  an  inspiring  exemplar. 
Educated  at  the  University  of  Michigan,  he  became  a  practicing 
engineer,  an  educator,  and  an  inventor.  After  serving  in  the 
United  States  Lake  and  Mississippi  River  Surveys,  he  was  elected 
Professor  of  Civil  Engineering  in  Washington  University,  at 
St.  Louis,  where  he  had  charge  of  the  timber  testing  laboratory 
of  the  United  States,  and,  later,  was  appointed  Dean  of  the 
Department  of  Mechanics  and  Engineering  at  the  University 
of  Wisconsin.  While  thus  engaged,  he  proposed  the  parabolic 
column  formula,  and  introduced  the  roller  extensometer  for 
testing  materials.  Though  devoted  to  his  profession,  a  presi- 
dent of  the  Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Engineering  Educa- 
tion, and  the  author  of  several  treatises  of  notable  merit,  he 
made  systematic  effort  to  extend  his  knowledge  of  literature 
and  art.  The  following  essay  is  reprinted,  by  permission  of  the 
editors,  from  the  interesting  and  authoritative  volume,  Addresses 
to  Engineering  Students,  published  by  Dr.  J.  A.  L.  Waddell  and 
Mr.  John  Lyle  Harrington.] 

Education  may  be  defined  as  a  means  of  gradual 
emancipation  from  the  thraldom  of  incompetence. 
Since  incompetence  leads  of  necessity  to  failure,  and 

45 


46  JOHN  BUTLER  JOHNSON 

since  competence  alone  leads  to  success;  and  since 
the  natural  or  uneducated  man  is  but  incompetence 
personified,  it  is  of  supreme  importance  that  this 
thraldom,  or  this  enslaved  condition,  in  which  we 
are  all  born,  should  be  removed  in  some  way.  While 
unaided  individual  effort  has  worked,  and  will  con- 
tinue to  work  marvels,  these  recognized  exceptions 
acknowledge  the  rule  that  mankind  in  general  must 
be  aided  in  acquiring  this  complete  mastery  over  the 
latent  powers  of  head,  heart,  and  hand.  The  formal 
aids  in  this  process  of  emancipation  are  found  in  the 
grades  of  schools  and  colleges  with  which  the  children 
of  this  country  are  blessed  beyond  those  of  almost 
any  other  country  or  time.  The  boys  or  girls  who 
fail  to  embrace  these  emancipating  opportunities 
to  the  fullest  extent  practicable  are  thereby  con- 
senting to  degrees  of  incompetence  and  failure 
which  they  have  it  in  their  power  to  prevent.  This 
they  will  discover  to  their  chagrin  and  grief  when  it 
is  too  late  to  regain  the  lost  opportunities. 

There  are,  however,  two  general  classes  of  com- 
petency which  I  wish  to  discuss  to-day  which  are 
generated  in  the  schools.  These  are  Competency 
to  Serve,  and  Competency  to  Appreciate  and  Enjoy. 

By  competency  to  serve  is  meant  the  ability  to 
perform  one's  due  proportion  of  the  world's  work 
which  brings  to  society  a  common  benefit;  which 
makes  of  this  world  a  continually  better  home  for 
the  race,  and  which  tends  to  fit  the  race  for  the 
immortal  life  in  which  it  puts  its  trust. 


TWO  KINDS  OF  EDUCATION  FOR  ENGINEERS        47 

By  competency  to  appreciate  and  enjoy  is  meant 
the  ability  to  understand,  to  appropriate,  and  to 
assimilate  those  great  personal  achievements  of  the 
past  and  present  in  the  fields  of  the  true,  the  beauti- 
ful, and  the  good  which  bring  into  our  lives  a  kind 
of  peace,  and  joy,  and  gratitude  which  can  be  found 
in  no  other  way. 

It  is  true  that  all  kinds  of  elementary  education 
contribute  alike  to  both  of  these  ends,  but  in  the 
so-called  higher  education  it  is  too  common  to  choose 
between  them  rather  than  to  include  them  both. 
Since  it  is  only  service  which  the  world  is  willing 
to  pay  for,  it  is  only  those  competent  and  willing 
to  serve  a  public  or  private  utility  who  are  compen- 
sated in  a  financial  way.  It  is  the  education  which 
brings  a  competency  to  serve,  therefore,  which  is 
often  called  the  utilitarian,  and  sometimes  spoken 
of  contemptuously  as  the  bread-and-butter  educa- 
tion. On  the  other  hand,  the  education  which  gives 
a  competency  to  appreciate  and  to  enjoy  is  com- 
monly spoken  of  as  a  cultural  education.  Which 
kind  of  education  is  the  higher  and  nobler,  if  they 
must  be  contrasted,  depends  upon  the  point  of  view. 
If  personal  pleasure  and  happiness  are  the  chief 
end  and  aim  in  life,  then  for  those  persons  who 
have  no  disposition  to  serve,  the  cultural  educa- 
tion is  the  more  worthy  of  admiration  and  selection 
(conditioned  of  course  on  the  bodily  comforts  being 
so  far  provided  for  as  to  make  all  financial  compensa- 
tions of  no  object  to  the  individual).  If,  however, 


48  JOHN  BUTLER  JOHNSON 

service  to  others  is  the  most  worthy  purpose  in  life, 
and  if,  in  addition,  such  service  brings  the  greatest 
happiness,  then  the  education  which  develops  the 
ability  to  serve,  in  some  capacity,  should  be  regarded 
as  the  higher  and  more  worthy.  This  kind  of  edu- 
cation has  the  further  advantage  that  the  money 
consideration  it  brings  makes  its  possessor  a  self- 
supporting  member  of  society  instead  of  a  drone  or 
parasite,  which  those  must  be  who  cannot  serve. 

The  higher  education  which  leads  to  a  life  of  service 
has  been  known  as  a  professional  education,  as  law, 
medicine,  the  ministry,  teaching,  and  the  like. 
These  have  long  been  known  as  the  learned  pro- 
fessions. A  learned  profession  may  be  defined  as  a 
vocation  in  which  scholarly  accomplishments  are 
used  in  the  service  of  society,  or  of  other  individuals, 
for  a  valuable  consideration.  Under  such  a  defini- 
tion every  new  vocation  in  which  a  very  considerable 
amount  of  scholarship  is  required  for  its  successful 
prosecution,  and  which  is  placed  in  the  service  of 
others,  must  be  held  as  a  learned  profession.  And  as 
engineering  now  demands  fully  as  great  an  amount 
of  learning,  or  scholarship,  as  any  other,  it  has  already 
taken  a  high  rank  among  these  professions,  although 
as  a  learned  profession  it  is  scarcely  half  a  century 
old.  Engineering  differs  from  all  other  learned 
professions,  however,  in  this,  that  its  learning  has 
to  do  only  with  the  inanimate  world,  the  world  of 
dead  matter  and  force.  The  materials,  the  laws, 
and  the  forces  of  Nature,  and  scarcely  to  any  extent 


TWO  KINDS  OF  ENUCATION  FOR  ENGINEERS      49 

its  life,  are  the  peculiar  field  of  the  engineer.  Not 
only  is  the  engineer  pretty  thoroughly  divorced  from 
life  in  general,  but  even  with  the  society  of  which 
he  is  a  part  his  professional  life  has  little  in  common. 
His  profession  is  so  new  that  it  has  practically  no 
past,  either  of  history  or  of  literature,  which  merits 
his  consideration,  much  less  his  laborious  study. 
Neither  do  the  ordinary  social  or  political  problems 
enter  in  any  way  into  his  sphere  of  operations. 
Natural  law,  dead  matter,  and  lifeless  force  make  up 
his  working  world,  and  in  these  he  lives  and  moves 
and  has  his  professional  being.  Professionally  re- 
garded, what  to  him  is  the  history  of  his  own  or  of 
other  races?  What  have  the  languages  and  the 
literatures  of  the  world  of  value  to  him?  What 
interest  has  he  in  domestic  or  foreign  politics,  or  in 
the  various  social  and  religious  problems  of  the 
day?  In  short,  what  interest  is  there  for  him  in 
what  we  now  commonly  include  in  the  term  "  the 
humanities  ? "  It  must  be  admitted  that  in  a 
professional  way  they  have  little  or  none.  Except 
in  modern  languages,  by  which  he  obtains  access 
to  current  progress  in  applied  science,  he  has 
practically  no  professional  interest  in  any  of  these 
things.  His  structures  are  made  no  safer,  no  more 
economical;  his  prime  movers  are  no  more  powerful 
nor  efficient;  his  electrical  wonders  no  more  occult 
nor  useful;  his  tools  no  more  ingenious  nor  effective 
because  of  a  knowledge  of  all  these  humanistic 
affairs.  As  a  mere  server  of  society,  therefore,  an 


50  JOHN  BUTLER  JOHNSON 

engineer  is  about  as  good  a  tool  without  all  this 
cultural  knowledge  as  with  it.1  But  as  a  citizen, 
as  a  husband  and  father,  as  a  companion,  and  more 
than  all,  as  one's  own  constant,  perpetual,  unavoid- 
able personality,  the  taking  into  one's  life  of  a 
large  knowledge  of  the  life  and  thought  of  the  world, 
both  past  and  present,  is  an  important  matter  indeed; 
and  of  these  two  kinds  of  education,  as  they  affect 
the  life  work,  the  professional  success,  and  the 
personal  happiness  of  the  engineer,  I  will  speak  more 
in  detail. 

I  am  here  using  the  term  engineer  as  including 
the  large  class  of  modern  industrial  workers  who 
make  the  new  application  of  science  to  the  needs  of 
modern  life  their  peculiar  business  and  profession. 
A  man  of  this  class  may  also  be  called  an  applied 
scientist.  Evidently  he  must  have  a  large  acquaint- 
ance with  such  sciences  as  surveying,  physics,  chem- 
istry, geology,  metallurgy,  electricity,  applied  me- 
chanics, kinematics,  machine  design,  power  genera- 
tion and  transmission,  structural  designing,  and 
land  and  water  transportation.  And  as  a  common 
solvent  of  all  the  problems  arising  in  these  various 
subjects  he  must  have  an  extended  knowledge 
of  mathematics,  without  which  he  would  be  like  a 
sailor  without  compass  or  rudder.  To  the  engineer 
mathematics  is  a  tool  of  investigation,  a  means  to 
an  end,  and  not  the  end  itself.  The  same  thing  may 

1  Contrast  Johnson's  point  of  view  with  Sir  J.  J.  Thomson's. — Editor. 


TWO  KINDS  OF  EDUCATION  FOR  ENGINEERS       51 

be  said  of  his  physics,  his  chemistry,  and  of  all  his 
other  scientific  studies.  They  are  all  to  be  made 
tributary  to  the  solution  of  problems  which  may 
arise  in  his  professional  career.  Likewise  he  needs 
a  free  and  correct  use  of  his  mother  tongue,  that 
he  may  express  himself  clearly  and  forcibly  both  in 
speech  and  composition,  and  an  ability  to  read  both 
French  and  German,  that  he  may  read  the  current 
technical  literature  in  the  two  other  languages  which 
are  most  fruitful  in  new  and  original  technical  matter. 
It  is  quite  true  that  the  mental  development, 
the  growth  of  one's  mental  powers  and  the  com- 
mand over  them,  which  comes  incidentally  in  the 
acquisition  of  all  this  technical  knowledge  is  of  far 
more  value  than  the  knowledge  itself;  and  hence 
great  care  is  given  in  all  good  technical  schools  to  the 
mental  processes  of  the  students  and  to  a  thorough 
and  logical  method  of  presentation  and  of  acquisi- 
tion. In  other  words,  while  you  are  under  our  in- 
struction, it  is  much  more  important  that  you  should 
think  consecutively,  rationally,  and  logically,  than 
that  your  conclusions  should  be  numerically  correct. 
But  as  soon  as  you  leave  the  school,  the  exact  reverse 
holds.  Your  employer  is  not  concerned  with  your 
mental  development,  nor  with  your  mental  proc- 
esses, so  long  as  your  results  are  correct;  and  hence 
we  must  pay  some  attention  to  numerical  accuracy 
in  the  school,  especially  in  the  upper  classes. 

We  must  remember,  however,  that  the  mind  of 
the  engineer  is  primarily  a  workshop  and  not  a  ware- 


52  JOHN  BUTLER  JOHNSON 

house  or  lumber-room  of  information.  Your  facts 
are  better  stored  in  your  library.  Room  there  is  not 
so  valuable  as  it  is  in  the  mind,  and  the  informa- 
tion, furthermore,  is  better  preserved.  Knowledge 
alone  is  not  power.  The  ability  to  use  it  is  a 
latent  power,  and  the  actual  use  of  it  is  a  power. 
Instead  of  storing  your  minds  with  useful  knowledge, 
therefore,  store  your  minds  with  useful  tools,  and 
with  a  knowledge  only  of  how  to  use  such  tools. 
Then  your  minds  will  become  mental  workshops, 
well  fitted  for  turning  out  products  of  untold  value 
to  your  day  and  generation.  Everything  you  acquire 
in  your  course  in  this  college,  therefore,  you  should 
look  upon  as  mental  tools  with  which  you  are  equip- 
ping yourselves  for  your  future  careers.  It  may  well 
be  that  some  of  your  work  will  be  useful  rather  for 
the  sharpening  of  your  wits  and  for  the  development 
of  mental  grasp,  just  as  gymnastic  exercise  is  of  use 
only  in  developing  your  physical  system.  In  this 
case  it  has  served  as  a  tool  of  development  instead 
of  one  for  subsequent  use. 

Because  all  your  knowledge  here  gained  is  to 
serve  you  as  tools,  it  must  be  acquired  quantitatively 
rather  than  qualitatively.  First,  last,  and  all  the 
time,  you  are  required  to  know  not  how  simply, 
but  how  much,  how  far,  how  fast,  to  what  extent, 
at  what  cost,  with  what  certainty,  and  with  what 
factor  of  safety.  In  the  cultural  education  where 
one  is  learning  only  to  appreciate  and  to  enjoy, 
it  may  satisfy  the  average  mind  to  know  that  coal 


TWO  KINDS  OF  EDUCATION  FOR  ENGINEERS       53 

burned  under  a  boiler  generates  steam  which, 
entering  a  cylinder,  moves  a  piston  which  turns  the 
engine.  But  the  engineer  must  know  how  many 
heat  units  there  are  in  a  pound  of  coal  burned, 
how  many  of  these  are  generated  in  the  furnace,  how 
many  of  them  pass  into  the  water,  how  much  steam 
is  consumed  per  horse-power  per  hour,  and,  finally, 
how  much  effective  work  is  done  by  the  engine  per 
pound  of  coal  fed  to  the  furnace.  Merely  qualita- 
tive knowledge  leads  to  the  grossest  errors  of  judg- 
ment, and  is  of  that  kind  of  little  learning  which  is  a 
dangerous  thing.  At  my  summer  home  I  have  an 
hydraulic  ram  set  below  a  dam,  for  furnishing  a 
water  supply.  Nearby  is  an  old  abandoned  water 
power  grist  mill.  A  man  and  his  wife  were  looking 
at  the  ram  last  summer,  and  the  lady  was  overheard 
to  ask  what  it  is  for.  The  man  looked  about,  saw 
the  idle  water-wheel  of  the  old  mill,  and  ventured 
the  opinion  that  it  must  be  used  to  run  the  mill. 
He  knew  a  hydraulic  ram  when  he  saw  it,  and  he 
knew  that  it  is  used  to  generate  power,  and  that 
power  will  run  a  mill.  Ergo,  a  hydraulic  ram  will 
run  a  mill.  This  conclusion  is  on  a  par  with 
thousands  of  similar  errors  of  judgment  where  one's 
knowledge  is  qualitative  only.  All  engineering 
problems  are  purely  quantitative  from  the  beginning 
to  the  end,  and  so  are  all-  other  problems,  whether 
material,  or  moral,  or  financial,  or  commercial,  or 
social,  or  political,  or  religious.1  All  judgments 

1  Can  this  statement  be  accepted? — Editor. 


54  JOHN  BUTLER  JOHNSON 

passed  on  such  problems,  therefore,  must  be  quanti- 
tative judgments.  How  poorly  prepared  to  pass 
such  judgments  are  those  whose  knowledge  is  quali- 
tative only.  Success  in  all  fields  depends  largely 
on  the  accuracy  of  one's  judgment  in  foreseeing 
events,  and  in  engineering  it  depends  wholly  on 
such  accuracy.  An  engineer  must  see  all  around  his 
problems,  and  take  account  of  every  contingency 
which  can  happen  in  the  ordinary  course  of  events. 
When  all  such  contingencies  have  been  foreseen  and 
provided  against,  the  unexpected  cannot  happen, 
as  everything  has  been  foreseen.  It  is  customary 
to  say  that  "  the  unexpected  always  happens." 
This,  of  course,  is  untrue.  What  is  meant  is  that 
"  it  is  only  the  unexpected  which  happens; "  for  the 
very  good  reason  that  what  has  been  anticipated  has 
been  provided  against. 

In  order  that  knowledge  may  be  used  as  a  tool  in 
investigations  and  in  the  solution  of  problems,  it 
must  be  so  used  constantly  during  the  period  of 
its  acquisition.  Hence  the  large  amount  of  drawing- 
room,  field,  laboratory,  and  shop  practice  introduced 
into  our  engineering  courses.  We  try  to  make  theory 
and  practice  go  hand  in  hand.  In  fact,  we  teach  that 
theory  is  only  generalized  practice.  From  the 
necessary  facts,  observed  in  special  experiments,  or 
in  actual  practice,  general  principles  are  deduced 
from  which  effects  can  be  foreseen  or  derived  for 
new  cases  arising  in  practice.  This  is  like  saying, 
in  surveying,  that  with  a  true  and  accurate  hind- 


TWO  KINDS  OF  EDUCATION  FOR  ENGINEERS       55 

sight  an  equally  true  and  accurate  forward  course 
can  be  run.  Nearly  all  engineering  knowledge, 
outside  the  pure  mathematics,  is  of  this  experimental 
or  empirical  character,  and  we  generally  know  who 
made  the  experiments,  how  accordant  his  results 
were,  and  what  weight  can  be  given  to  his  conclusions. 
When  we  can  find  in  our  engineering  literature  no 
sufficiently  accurate  data,  or  none  exactly  covering 
the  case  in  hand,  we  must  set  to  work  to  make  a  set 
of  experiments  which  will  cover  the  given  conditions, 
in  order  to  obtain  numerical  factors,  or  possibly 
new  laws,  which  will  serve  to  make  our  calculations 
prove  true  in  the  completed  structure  or  scheme. 
The  ability  to  plan  and  carry  out  such  crucial  tests 
and  experiments  is  one  of  the  most  important  objects 
of  an  engineering  college  training,  and  we  give  our 
students  a  large  amount  of  such  laboratory  practice. 
In  all  such  work  it  is  the  absolute  truth  we  are 
seeking,  and  hence  any  guessing  at  data  or  falsi- 
fying of  records  or  "  doctoring  "  of  the  computations 
is  of  the  nature  of  a  professional  crime.  Any  copy- 
ing of  records  from  other  observers,  when  students 
are  supposed  to  make  their  own  observations,  is 
both  a  fraud  upon  themselves  as  well  as  upon  their 
instructor,  and  indicates  a  disposition  of  mind 
which  has  nothing  in  common  with  that  of  the 
engineer,  who  is  always  and  everywhere  a  truth- 
seeker  and  truth-tester.  The  sooner  such  a  person 
leaves  the  college  of  engineering,  the  better  for  him 
and  for  the  engineering  profession.  The  mistakes 


56  JOHN  BUTLER  JOHNSON 

of  the  engineer  are  quick  to  find  him  out  and  to 
proclaim  aloud  his  incompetence.  He  is  the  one 
professional  man  who  is  obliged  to  be  right,  and 
for  whom  sophistry  and  self-deception  are  a  fatal 
poison.  But  the  engineer  must  be  more  than  hon- 
est, he  must  be  able  to  discern  the  truth.  With  him 
an  honest  motive  is  no  justification.  He  must  not 
only  believe  he  is  right;  he  must  know  he  is  right. 
And  it  is  one  of  the  greatest  elements  of  satisfaction 
in  this  profession  that  it  is  commonly  possible  to 
secure  in  advance  this  almost  absolute  certainty 
of  results.  We  deal  with  fixed  laws  and  forces,  and 
only  so  far  as  the  materials  used  may  be  faulty, 
or  of  unknown  character,  or  as  contingencies  can 
not  be  foreseen  or  anticipated,  does  a  necessary 
ignorance  enter  into  the  problem. 

It  must  not  be  understood,  however,  that  with  all 
of  both  the  theory  and  practice  we  are  able  to  give 
our  students  in  their  four  or  five  years'  course  they 
will  be  full-fledged  engineers  when  they  leave  us. 
They  ought  to  be  excellent  material  out  of  which, 
with  a  few  years'  actual  practice,  they  may  become 
engineers  of  the  first  order.  Just  as  a  young  physi- 
cian must  have  experience  with  actual  patients, 
and  as  a  young  lawyer  must  have  actual  experience 
in  the  courts,  so  must  an  engineer  have  experi- 
ence with  real  problems  before  he  can  rightfully 
lay  claim  to  the  title  of  engineer.  And  in  seeking 
this  professional  practice  he  must  not  be  too  choice. 
As  a  rule,  the  higher  up  one  begins,  the  sooner  his 


TWO  KINDS  OF    EDUCATION  FOR  ENGINEERS      57 

promotion  stops;  and  the  lower  down  he  begins,  the 
higher  will  he  ultimately  climb.  The  man  at  the 
top  should  know  in  a  practical  way  all  the  work 
over  which  he  is  called  upon  to  preside,  and  this 
means  beginning  at  the  bottom.  Too  many  of  our 
graduates  refuse  to  do  this.  No  position  is  too 
menial  in  the  learning  of  a  business.  But  as  your 
college  training  has  enabled  you  to  learn  a  new  thing 
rapidly,  you  should  rapidly  master  minor  details;  and 
in  a  few  years  you  should  be  far  ahead  of  the  ordi- 
nary apprentice  who  went  to  work  from  the  grammar 
school  or  from  the  high  school. 

The  great  opportunity  for  the  engineer  of  the 
future  is  in  the  direction  and  management  of  our 
manufacturing  industries.  We  are  about  to  be- 
come the  world's  workshop;  as  competition  grows 
sharper,  and  as  greater  economies  become  necessary, 
the  technically  trained  man  will  become  an  absolute 
necessity  in  the  leading  positions  in  all  our  industrial 
works.  These  are  the  positions  hitherto  held  by 
men  without  technical  training  who  have  grown 
up  with  the  business.  They  are  being  rapidly 
supplanted  by  technical  men,  who,  however,  must 
serve  their  apprenticeship  from  the  bottom  up. 

In  the  foregoing  description  of  the  technical  educa- 
tion and  work  of  the  engineer,  the  engineer  himself 
has  been  considered  as  a  kind  of  human  tool  to  be 
used  in  the  interest  of  society.  His  service  to 
society  alone  has  been  in  contemplation.  But  as  the 


58  JOHN  BUTLER  JOHNSON 

engineer  has  also  a  personality  which  is  capable  of 
appreciation  and  enjoyment  of  the  best  this  world 
has  produced  in  the  way  of  literature  and  art; 
as  he  is  to  be  a  citizen  and  a  man  of  family;  and, 
moreover,  since  he  has  a  conscious  self  with  which 
he  must  always  commune,  and  from  which  he  cannot 
escape,  it  is  well  worth  his  while  to  see  to  it  that 
this  self,  this  husband  and  father,  this  citizen  and 
neighbor,  is  something  more  than  a  tool  to  be  worked 
in  other  men's  interests,  and  that  his  mind  shall 
contain  a  library,  a  parlor,  and  a  drawing-room, 
as  well  as  a  workship.  And  yet  how  many  engineers' 
minds  are  all  shops  out  of  which  only  shop  talk 
can  be  drawn!  Such  men  are  little  more  than  ani- 
mated tools  worked  in  the  interest  of  society.  They 
are  liable  to  be  something  of  a  bore  to  their  families 
and  friends,  almost  a  cipher  in  the  social  and  reli- 
gious life  of  the  community,  and  a  weariness  of  the 
flesh  to  their  more  liberal  minded  professional 
brethren.  Their  lives  are  a  continuous  grind, 
which  has  for  them  doubtless  a  certain  grim  satis- 
faction, but  which  is  monotonous  and  tedious  in 
comparison  with  what  might  have  been.  Even 
when  valued  by  the  low  standard  of  money-making, 
they  are  not  so  likely  to  secure  lucrative  incomes  as 
they  would  be  with  a  greater  breadth  of  information 
and  worldly  interest.  They  are  likely  to  stop  in 
snug  professional  berths  which  they  find  ready-made 
for  them,  under  some  sort  of  fixed  administration, 
and  maintain  through  life  a  subordinate  relation  to 


TWO  KINDS  OF  EDUCATION  FOR  ENGINEERS      59 

directing  heads  who,  with  a  tithe  of  their  technical 
ability,  are  yet  able,  with  their  worldly  knowledge, 
their  breadth  of  interests,  and  their  fellowship  with 
men,  to  dictate  to  these  narrower  technical  subordi- 
nates, and  to  fix  for  them  their  fields  of  operation. 

In  order,  therefore,  that  the  technical  man,  who 
in  material  things  knows  what  to  do,  and  how  to  do 
it,  may  be  able  to  get  the  thing  done,  and  to  direct 
the  doing  of  it,  he  must  be  an  engineer  of  men  and  of 
capital  as  well  as  of  the  materials  and  forces  of 
Nature.  In  other  words,  he  must  cultivate  human 
interests,  human  learning,  human  associations,  and 
avail  himself  of  every  opportunity  to  further  these 
personal  and  business  relations.  If  he  can  make 
himself  as  good  a  business  man,  or  as  good  a  manager 
of  men,  as  he  usually  makes  of  himself  in  the  field 
of  engineering  he  has  chosen,  there  is  no  place 
too  great,  and  no  salary  too  high  for  him  to  aspire 
to.  Of  such  men  are  our  greatest  railroad  presidents 
and  general  managers  and  the  directors  of  our 
largest  industrial  establishments.  While  most  of 
their  special  knowledge  must  also  be  acquired  in 
actual  practice,  some  of  it  can  best  be  obtained  in 
college.  The  one  crying  weakness  of  our  engineering 
graduates  is  ignorance  of  the  business,  the  social,  and 
the  political  world,  and  of  human  interests  in  general 
They  have  little  knowledge  in  common  with  the 
graduates  of  our  literary  colleges,  and  hence  often 
find  little  pleasure  in  such  associations.  They  be- 
come clannish,  run  mostly  with  men  of  their  pro- 


60  JOHN  BUTLER  JOHNSON 

fession,  take  little  interest  in  the  commercial  or 
business  departments  of  the  establishments  with 
which  they  are  connected,  and  so  become  more  and 
more  fixed  in  their  inanimate  worlds  of  matter  and 
force.  I  beseech  you,  therefore,  while  yet  students, 
to  try  to  broaden  your  interests,  to  extend  your 
horizons  now  into  other  fields,  even  but  for  a  bird's- 
eye  view,  and  to  profit,  as  far  as  possible,  by  the  atmo- 
sphere of  universal  knowledge  which  you  can  breathe 
here  through  the  entire  period  of  your  college  course. 
Try  t«  find  a  chum  who  is  in  another  department; 
go  to  literary  societies;  haunt  the  library;  attend 
the  available  lectures  in  literature,  science,  and  art, 
attend  the  meetings  of  the  Science  Club;  and  in 
every  way  possible,  with  a  peep  here  and  a  word 
there,  improve  to  the  utmost  these  marvelous 
opportunities  which  will  never  come  to  you  again. 
Think  not  of  tasks;  call  no  assignments  by  such  a 
name.  Call  them  opportunities,  and  cultivate  a 
hunger  and  thirst  for  all  kinds  of  humanistic 
knowledge  outside  your  particular  world  of  dead 
matter;  for  you  will  never  again  have  such  an 
opportunity,  and  you  will  be  always  thankful  that 
you  made  good  use  of  this,  your  one  chance  in  a 
lifetime. 

For  your  own  personal  happiness,  and  that  of  your 
immediate  associates,  secure  in  some  way,  either  in 
college  or  after  leaving  it,  an  acquaintance  with 
some  of  the  world's  best  literature,  with  the  leading 
facts  of  history,  and  with  the  biographies  of  the 


TWO  KINDS  OF  EDUCATION  FOR  ENGINEERS       61 

greatest  men  in  pure  and  applied  science,  as  well  as 
with  those  of  statesmen  and  leaders  in  many  fields. 
With  this  knowledge  of  great  men,  great  thoughts,  and 
great  deeds  will  come  that  lively  interest  in  men  and 
affairs  which  is  held  by  educated  men  generally, 
and  which  will  put  you  on  an  even  footing  with  them 
in  your  daily  intercourse.  This  kind  of  knowledge 
also  elevates  and  sweetens  the  intellectual  life,  leads 
to  the  formation  of  lofty  ideals,  helps  one  to  a  com- 
mand of  good  English,  and  in  a  hundred  ways 
refines  and  inspires  to  high  and  noble  endeavor. 
This  is  the  cultural  education  leading  to  the  appre- 
ciation and  enjoyment  man  is  assumed  to  possess. 

Think  not,  however,  that  I  depreciate  the  peculiar 
work  of  the  engineering  college.  It  is  by  this  kind 
of  education  alone  that  America  has  already  become 
supreme  in  nearly  all  lines  of  material  advancement. 
I  am  only  anxious  that  the  men  who  have  made  these 
things  possible  shall  reap  their  full  share  of  the  bene- 
fits. 

In  conclusion  let  me  congratulate  you  on  having 
selected  courses  of  study  which  will  bring  you  into 
the  most  intimate  relation  with  the  work  of  your 
generation.  All  life  to-day  is  an  endless  round  of 
scientific  applications  of  means  to  ends,  but  such 
applications  are  still  in  their  infancy.  A  decade 
now  sees  more  material  progress  than  a  century 
in  the  past.  Not  to  be  scientifically  trained  in  these 
matters  is  equivalent  to-day  to  practical  exclusion 


62  JOHN  BUTLER  JOHNSON 

from  all  part  and  share  in  the  industrial  world. 
The  entire  direction  of  industry  and  commerce  is 
to  be  in  your  hands.  You  are  also  charged  with 
making  the  discoveries  and  inventions  which  will 
come  in  your  generation.  The  day  of  the  inventor, 
ignorant  of  science  and  of  Nature's  laws,  has  gone 
by.  The  mere  mechanical  contrivances  have  been 
pretty  well  exhausted.  Henceforth  profitable  in- 
vention must  include  the  use  or  embodiment  of  scien- 
tific principles  with  which  the  untrained  artisan  is 
unacquainted.  More  and  more  will  invention  be 
but  the  scientific  application  of  means  to  ends,  and 
this  is  what  we  teach  in  the  engineering  schools- 
Already  our  patent  office  is  much  puzzled  to  dis- 
tinguish between  engineering  and  invention.  Since 
engineering  proper  consists  in  the  solution  of  new 
problems  in  the  material  world,  and  invention  is 
likewise  the  discovery  of  new  ways  of  doing  things, 
they  cover  the  same  field.  But  an  invention  is 
patentable,  while  an  engineering  solution  is  not. 
Invention  is  supposed  in  law  to  be  an  inborn  faculty 
by  which  new  truth  is  conceived  by  no  definable  way 
of  approach.  If  it  had  not  been  reached  by  a 
particular  individual,  it  is  assumed  that  it  might 
never  have  been  known.  An  engineering  solution 
is  supposed,  and  rightly,  to  have  been  reached  by 
logical  processes  through  known  laws  of  matter, 
and  force,  and  motion,  so  that  another  engineer, 
given  the  same  problem,  would  probably  have 
reached  the  same  or  an  equivalent  result.  And  this 


TWO  KINDS  OF  EDUCATION  FOR  ENGINEERS      63 

is  not  patentable.  Already  a  very  large  proportion 
of  the  patents  issued  could  be  nullified  on  this 
ground  if  the  attorneys  only  knew  enough  to  make 
their  case.  More  and  more,  therefore,  are  the  men 
of  your  profession  to  be  charged  with  the  responsi- 
bility, and  to  be  credited  with  the  honor,  of  the 
world's  progress,  and  more  and  more  is  the  world's 
work  to  be  placed  under  your  direction.  These 
are  your  responsibilities  and  your  honors.  The 
tasks  are  great,  and  great  will  be  your  rewards.  That 
you  may  fitly  prepare  yourself  for  them  is  the  hope 
and  trust  of  your  teachers  in  this  college  of  engi- 
neering. 

I  will  close  this  address  by  quoting  Professor 
Huxley's  definition  of  a  liberal  education.  Says 
Huxley:  "  That  man,  I  think,  has  had  a  liberal  edu- 
cation who  has  been  so  trained  in  youth  that  his 
body  is  the  ready  servant  of  his  will,  and  does  with 
ease  and  pleasure  all  the  work  that,  as  a  mechanism, 
it  'is  capable  of;  whose  intellect  is  a  clear,  cold, 
logic  engine,  with  all  its  parts  of  equal  strength, 
and  in  smooth  working  order;  ready,  like  a  steam 
engine,  to  be  turned  to  any  kind  of  work,  and  spin 
the  gossamers  as  well  as  forge  the  anchors  of  the 
mind;  whose  mind  is  stored  with  a  knowledge  of  the 
great  and  fundamental  truths  of  Nature  and  of  the 
laws  of  her  operations;  one  who,  no  stunted  ascetic, 
is  full  of  life  and  fire,  but  whose  passions  are  trained 
to  come  to  heel  by  a  vigorous  will,  the  servant  of  a 
tender  conscience;  who  has  learned  to  love  all 


64  JOHN  BUTLER  JOHNSON 

beauty,  whether  of  Nature  or  of  art,  to  hate  all 
vileness,  and  to  respect  others  as  himself. 

"  Such  a  one  and  no  other,  I  conceive,  has  had  a 
liberal  education;  for  he  is,  as  completely  as  a  man 
can  be,  in  harmony  with  Nature.  He  will  make 
the  best  of  her,  and  she  of  him.  They  will  get  on 
together  rarely;  she  as  his  ever  beneficent  mother; 
he  as  her  mouthpiece,  her  conscious  self,  her  minister 
and  interpreter." 


IV 

THE  CLASSICAL-SCIENTIFIC  VERSUS  THE 

PURELY  TECHNICAL  UNIVERSITY 

COURSE 

HOWARD  McCLENAHAN 

[THE  educational  ideal  sketched  by  John  Butler  Johnson  is 
set  forth  in  more  detail  by  Howard  McClenahan  (1872-  ), 
who  is  admirably  fitted  for  the  task.  Educated  at  Princeton 
University  as  an  electrical  engineer,  he  is  now  Professor  of 
Physics  and  Dean  of  the  College  in  his  Alma  Mater.  The 
following  address,  reprinted,  by  permission  of  the  author  and 
editor,  from  the  Proceedings  of  the  American  Institute  of  Elec- 
trical Engineers  for  September,  1914,  is  based  on  an  academic 
experience  of  twenty  years.  Though  it  was  prepared  for  an 
association  of  electrical  engineers,  the  conclusions  are  applicable 
to  every  type  of  engineering.  The  adjective  "  electrical,"  used  in 
the  title  and  two  or  three  times  throughout  the  address,  has 
therefore  been  omitted.] 

Aristotle  has  stated  the  purpose  of  education  to 
be  to  make  the  best  possible  man  out  of  any  one 
individual,  to  make  the  individual  the  best  man  that 
he  can  be.  The  best  possible  man,  I  take  it,  is  the 
man  who  contributes  the  best  of  life  to  those  depend- 
ent upon  him  and  to  the  community  and  the  country 
in  which  he  lives.  The  best  possible  man  is  the  man 
who  brings  sound  judgment,  broad  learning,  tolera- 
tion, and  good  will,  as  well  as  marked  professional 

6s 


66  HOWARD  McCLENAHAN 

or  business  ability,  into  the  affairs  of  his  life.  In 
a  word,  the  best  possible  man — the  best  which  any 
individual  can  make  of  himself — is  the  man  whose 
capabilities  are  brought  to  the  highest  degree  of 
development. 

Validity  of  judgment  is  dependent  upon  ability 
to  take  into  consideration  every  factor  which  can 
affect  the  matter  under  consideration;  and  this 
ability  is  dependent  upon  knowledge  of  all  these 
factors;  is  dependent  upon  knowledge  of  the  legal, 
the  economic,  the  scientific,  the  human,  the  sanitary, 
and  even  the  religious  aspects  of  the  matter.  Judg- 
ments which  are  based  upon  partial  knowledge 
are  dangerous  just  because  they  are  partial,  because 
they  fail  to  take  account  of  factors  which  may  make 
or  mar  the  success  of  the  whole  venture. 

The  best  medical  judgment  is  not  that  of  the  phy- 
sician who  knows  all  that  is  to  be  known  of  medicines 
and  their  effects  upon  the  human  system.  The 
best  medical  judgment  is  that  of  the  physician  who 
has  full  knowledge  of  his  materia  medica  plus  a 
knowle.dge  of  the  social  and  ancestral  and  religious 
antecedents  and  environments  of  his  patients. 

Breadth  of  knowledge,  upon  which  sound  judgment 
must  rest,  can  be  attained  only  by  broad  training. 
It  can  never  be  got  through  a  purely  technical 
training,  thorough  and  fine  and  valuable  though  that 
may  be.  It  can  be  had  only  by  a  study  of  history  and 
economics,  of  philosophy  and  literature,  of  mathe- 
matics and  the  sciences.  It  is  my  belief  that 


CLASSICAL-SCIENTIFIC   VS.  PURELY  TECHNICAL     67 

nothing  else  contributes  so  much  to  the  development 
of  the  imagination,  of  perseverance,  and  of  the  power 
of  logical  reasoning  as  does  the  proper  study  of  Latin 
and  Greek.  But  whether  or  not  other  languages 
be  substituted  for  these  two  classical  tongues,  it 
seems  certain  that  wide  knowledge  can  be  obtained 
only  by  a  wide  range  of  serious  study. 

Complaint  is  constantly  heard  from  the  heads  of 
large  manufacturing  concerns,  from  consulting  en- 
gineers of  international  standing,  and  from  those 
having  the  power  of  public  appointment,  of  the 
almost  insuperable  difficulty  of  finding  well  trained, 
thoroughly  developed  men  to  take  responsible  posi- 
tions. A  limitless  supply  of  half-trained  engineers, 
of  men  who  are  technical  men  only,  is  constantly  at 
hand.  The  supply  of  men  who  can  do  this  one 
thing,  or  that  one  thing,  well  is  never  exhausted. 
The  number  of  men  who  can  look  at  any  problem 
broadly  and  inclusively,  who  can  think  and  can  form 
a  valid  judgment  about  any  new  project,  is  said  to 
be  almost  vanishingly  small.  In  no  other  profession 
is  there  more  room  for  men  at  the  top  than  there  is 
in  engineering.  This  lack  of  well-rounded,  trained 
men  is  the  necessary  effect  of  technical  training;  for 
technical  training,  by  its  very  nature,  is  narrowing, 
and  is  not  conducive  to  broadness  of  vision  and  sound- 
ness of  judgment.  In  technical  work,  how  much  of 
success  or  failure  depends  upon  painful  attention 
to  minute  details  ?  How  many  of  us  who  have  done 
experimental  work  in  electricity  have  not  risked  our 


68  HOWARD  McCLENAHAN 

immortal  souls  only  to  find  that  all  of  our  trouble 
was  due  to  a  loose  contact  in  an  inaccessible  place? 
This  necessary  attention  to  detail  has,  and  must 
have,  the  effect  of  developing  narrowness  rather 
than  broadness,  of  limiting  one's  powers  rather  than 
of  developing  them  in  every  particular.  Another 
unfortunate  effect  of  such  narrow,  rigorous  training 
—and  technical  training  must  be  most  rigorous  if 
it  is  to  be  anything — is  the  production  of  the  feeling, 
too  often,  that  a  thing  must  be  useful  in  order  to 
have  any  value,  the  production  of  an  unwillingness 
to  learn  anything  unless  it  can  be  shown  that  it  is 
immediately,  or  almost  immediately,  applicable 
to  some  practical  end.  This  feeling  is,  perhaps, 
not  the  necessary  result  of  purely  technical  training. 
It  is,  however,  so  common  among  purely  technically 
trained  men  as  to  warrant  one  in  being  almost 
convinced  that  it  is  a  nearly  inevitable  result  of  such 
one-sided  training. 

I  have  attempted  to  indicate  the  necessity  for  a 
broad,  general  training  for  engineers  when  viewed 
from  the  side  of  rounded  development  and  useful- 
ness. I  wish,  however,  now  to  attempt  to  show  that 
even  in  those  things  which  are  called  technical  sub- 
jects the  best  training  for  the  engineer  is  the 
broad  training  upon  which  is  superposed  the  detailed, 
strict,  technical  training.  Mathematics  and  physics 
and  chemistry  are  not  tools  of  the  engineering  pro- 
fession. They  are  the  very  foundations  of  all  engi- 


CLASSICAL-SCIENTIFIC   VS.   PURELY  TECHNICAL     69 

neering,  and  their  applications  constitute  engineering 
of  all  types;  for  engineering  is  simply  the  applica- 
tion to  the  specific  of  the  general  principles  of  physics 
and  chemistry  and  mathematics.  Therefore,  the 
man  who  has  the  best  training  in  the  fundamentals 
of  these  sciences,  and  who  has  the  greatest  grasp 
of  their  principles,  is,  other  things  being  equal, 
the  one  who  will  make  the  best  trained  engineer. 
The  constant  tendency  in  engineering  training  is  to 
regard  these  sciences  as  the  tools  of  engineering 
rather  than  as  the  very  body  and  substance  of 
engineering.  In  far  too  many  cases,  physics  and 
chemistry  are  taught  as  "  engineering  physics " 
and  "  engineering  chemistry,"  to  the  great  loss 
of  both  engineering  and  these  two  sciences.  For 
example,  physics  may  be  taught  as  the  tool  of 
engineering,  in  which  case  the  student  receives 
instruction  in  only  those  portions  of  physics  which 
the  particular  instructor  thinks  will  be  of  use  to  the 
engineer,  without  overmuch  regard  to  the  fact  that  he 
may  be  omitting  those  portions  which  help  to  make 
physics  a  great  constructive  mental  discipline. 
This  method  not  only  injures  a  student's  knowledge 
of  physics  and  his  conception  of  physics  as  a  science; 
it  must  also  produce  in  his  mind  an  impression  in 
favor  of  useful  knowledge,  and  a  distaste  for  that 
which  is  apparently  useless.  This  result  neces- 
sarily handicaps  the  growing  student  in  his  sub- 
sequent work;  for  one  can  never  predict  when  knowl- 
edge which  is  apparently  useless  will  not  become  the 


70  HOWARD  McCLENAHAN 

most  highly  useful  of  all  one's  attainments.  An 
example  of  the  difference  of  these  two  types  of 
training  may  be  drawn  from  any  of  the  several 
branches  of  electrical  science — from  electro-chem- 
istry, from  electrical  designing,  from  illuminating 
engineering.  We  have  probably  all  seen  the  designer 
who  can  design,  by  the  application  of  certain  em- 
pirical rules,  machinery  wh'ch  will  work  efficiently 
and  satisfactorily  so  long  as  the  machines  are  of 
standard  type,  but  who  becomes  puzzled  and  unable 
to  modify  his  formula  for  application  to  machines 
of  a  radically  different  type.  The  illuminating 
engineer  may  be  trained  to  lay  out  properly  an 
equipment  for  the  satisfactory  illumination  of  build- 
ings, yet  his  understanding  of  his  work,  and  his 
success  at  it,  would  be  greatly  heightened  by  full 
understanding  of  the  principles  of  radiation  and 
absorption  of  colors,  and  of  physiology.  Endless 
illustrations  of  this  point  could  be  offered  to  make 
clear  what  is  meant,  but  perhaps  those  which  have 
been  given  will  suffice. 

The  foregoing  remarks  indicate,  I  think,  fully 
enough,  what  I  should  regard  as  the  best  method  of 
training  engineers.  It  would  consist  of  at  least  three, 
and  preferably  four,  years  of  training  in  a  general 
course.  In  this  course  a  student  would  study  the 
great  branches  of  human  knowledge — literature, 
philosophy,  economics,  history,  languages,  physics, 
chemistry,  and  mathematics.  He  should  study  the 


CLASSICAL-SCIENTIFIC   VS.  PURELY  TECHNICAL     71 

principles  of  these  subjects  in  order  to  get  a  grasp 
of  each;  and  especially  should  he  study  physics 
as  physics,  and  chemistry  as  chemistry,  and  not  as 
tools  for  the  engineering  profession.  And  then  there 
should  be  superposed  upon  this  fundamental  train- 
ing a  two-year  rigorous  technical  course.  By  such 
training  a  student  would  be  prepared  thoroughly 
to  carry  on  with  maximum  efficiency,  and  with 
maximum  understanding  and  interest,  the  work  of 
his  professional  school.  He  would  come  to  his 
professional  training  with  mature,  trained  mind, 
with  deep  realization  of  the  seriousness  of  his  work, 
and  with  greater  purpose  to  do  it  all  to  best  advan- 
tage. He  would  take  up  the  work  as  a  trained  man 
instead  of  as  a  growing  boy.  The  experience  of 
twenty  years  has  convinced  me  that  this  is  the  only 
method  for  training  engineers. 


THE  BASES  OF  ENGINEERING 
EDUCATION-LANGUAGE 


THE  VALUE  OF  ENGLISH  TO  THE 
TECHNICAL  MAN 

JOHN  LYLE  HARRINGTON 

[AMONG  engineers  there  is  increasing  recognition  of  the  im- 
portance of  English  in  engineering  practice.  In  connection 
with  the  following  essay,  Dr.  Waddell  and  Mr.  Harrington,  the 
editors  of  Engineering  Addresses,  remark  that  "  Upon  whether 
its  teachings  be  followed  or  ignored  may  depend  the  success  or 
failure  of  any  technical  student  to  attain  in  after  life  the  highest 
rank  in  the  engineering  profession.  Possessing  a  mastery  of 
the  English  language,  he  may  or  may  not  rise  to  eminence;  but 
without  it  he  certainly  cannot.  Any  engineering  student  who 
wilfully  neglects  the  study  of  his  own  language  deserves  the  fail- 
ure to  attain  eminence  which  assuredly  will  be  his  fate."  The 
author,  John  Lyle  Harrington  (1868-  ),  a  graduate  of 
the  University  of  Kansas  and  of  McGill  University,  is  a  dis- 
tinguished engineer.  As  a  member  of  the  Elmira  Bridge 
Company,  of  the  Keystone  Bridge  Works,  and  of  the  Berlin 
Iron  Bridges  Company,  he  designed  many  of  the  heavy  bridges 
of  the  continent.  For  some  time  also  he  was  chief  engineer 
and  manager  of  the  Locomotive  and  Machine  Company  of 
Montreal.  At  present  he  is  a  member  of  the  firm  of  Harring- 
ton, Howard,  and  Ash.  His  essay,  which  first  appeared  in 
pamphlet  form,  is  reprinted,  by  permission  of  the  publishers, 
from  Engineering  Addresses.] 

Language  is  an  instrument,  a  medium  for  the 
exchange  of  thought.  If,  in  individual  instances, 

75 


76  JOHN  LYLE  HARRINGTON 

both  speaker  and  hearer  employ  words  in  the  same 
sense,  and  arrange  them  in  the  same  manner,  the 
expressed  ideas  will  be  perfectly  understood,  whether 
the  language  be  in  accordance  with  good  usage  or 
not.  But  if  thought  is  to  be  conveyed  'without  loss 
to  a  larger  audience,  the  medium  must  be  substan- 
tially perfect.  Words  must  not  only  be  used  in 
accordance  with  their  accustomed  and  generally 
accepted  meanings,  and  with  all  the  shades  and 
niceties  of  those  meanings,  but  they  must  be  arranged 
in  accordance  with  the  accepted  construction  of 
phrase,  clause,  and  sentence;  and  the  whole  argu- 
ment must  be  so  ordered  with  regard  to  the  sequence 
and  the  relations  of  the  various  ideas  that  the 
hearer  shall  be  compelled  to  understand.  Dis- 
courses in  which  thoughts,  though  they  be  ever  so 
clearly  expressed,  are  not  arranged  in  logical  order, 
will  fail  in  their  purpose,  because  the  argument 
is  confused,  and  the  mind  of  the  hearer  is  occupied 
with  the  language  instead  of  the  substance  of  the 
thought.  You  will  recall  Sam  Weller's  remark 
regarding  Mr.  Nupkins'  eloquence  that  "  his  ideas 
come  out  so  fast  they  knock  each  other's  heads  off 
and  you  can't  tell  what  he  is  driving  at."  Like  any 
other  instrument,  the  value  of  language  is  in  direct 
proportion  to  our  knowledge  of  it  and  our  skill  in 
its  use.  If  we  understand  it  fully,  and  use  it  skill- 
fully, it  will  serve  our  purpose  well;  but  if  we  are 
novices  and  bunglers,  only  disappointment  will 
result. 


VALUE  OF  ENGLISH  TO  THE  TECHNICAL  MAN     77 

Language,  though  it  will  not  supply  the  place  of 
thought,  is  a  most  essential  instrument  to  every  man. 
To  him  who  is  without  important  thought  to  express 
it  is  not  a  very  valuable  tool.  The  laborer  does  not 
require  it  in  handling  the  pick  and  shovel;  it  is  only 
in  his  social  relations  that  he  has  much  need  for 
speech.  It  is  not  important  that  the  stoker  speak 
fluently,  or  that  the  mechanic  be  an  able  orator  or 
writer.  But  as  we  proceed  from  the  lower  to  the 
higher  and  more  intellectual  occupations,  the  need 
and  the  value  of  knowledge  and  command  of  language 
rapidly  increase.  The  politician,  we  sometimes  think, 
makes  skillful  use  of  language  to  hide  his  thought 
or  to  dissemble.  Indeed,  in  all  walks  of  life  there 
are  times  when  words  are  well  employed  to  obscure 
the  thought.  But  the  physician  must  be  skillful 
in  the  use  of  language  in  order  to  direct  and  control 
his  patients,  as  well  as  to  write,  and  to  understand 
the  writings  of  his  fellow  physicians.  The  clergy- 
man needs  it  to  please,  to  inform,  to  convince,  and 
to  persuade  his  auditors.  The  technical  man, 
that  is,  the  engineer,  the  architect,  and  the  applied 
scientist  of  every  kind,  finds  a  sound,  accurate  knowl- 
edge of  the  language  essential  to  him  in  every  part 
of  his  work.  A  wide  and  precise  knowledge  of 
words  is  required  in  his  reading  as  well  as  in  his 
general  writing;  in  his  business  and  professional  con- 
versations even  more  than  in  those  of  a  social  nature. 
In  the  preparation  and  interpretation  of  technical 
correspondence,  specifications,  and  contracts,  the 


78  JOHN  LYLE  HARRINGTON 

use  of  perfect  language  reaches  the  highest  degree  of 
importance.  The  lawyer  alone  needs  to  be  so  much 
of  a  precisian,  and  he  attains  that  end  by  very  awk- 
ward and  cumbersome  means. 

The  technical  man  of  the  highest  order  is  not  only 
a  cultured  gentleman,  versed  in  all  the  amenities  of 
polite  society,  familiar  with  the  best  literature  in  his 
own  language  and  probably  in  that  of  one  or  two 
others,  able  to  read  many  branches  of  learning 
understandingly  and  to  discuss  them  intelligently; 
but,  in  addition,  he  has  special  knowledge  of  mathe- 
matics and  the  applied  sciences,  and  he  is  not  only 
able  to  understand  what  is  written  or  spoken  about 
them,  but  to  express  his  own  thought  readily,  accur- 
ately, and  logically.  The  successful  technical  man,  it 
has  been  well  said,  must  know  much  about  everything 
and  everything  about  something,  but  his  ideas  and 
knowledge  are  of  small  value  except  in  so  far  as  he 
can  convey  them  to  others;  for,  since  he  does  not 
often  labor  with  his  hands,  he  must  instruct  and 
direct  those  who  do.  Thus,  language  is  his  most 
important  tool,  and  it  certainly  behooves  him  to  see 
that  it  is  always  in  good  order.  His  reputation  as  a 
gentleman  and  as  a  professional  man  depends  very 
largely  upon  his  knowledge  and  use  of  English. 

Technical  men  are  peculiarly  prone  to  offend  in  the 
use  of  their  mother  tongue  because  they  have  not, 
as  a  rule,  read  deeply  in  literature  nor  studied  the 
construction  of  the  language.  The  technical  man 


VALUE  OF  ENGLISH  TO  THE  TECHNICAL  MAN     79 

who  has  a  thorough  knowledge  of  English  has  had  the 
wisdom  and  patience  to  supplement  his  technical 
education  by  an  arts  course,  has  read  widely,  or 
possesses  the  gift  of  speech.  Long  continued  and 
intimate  association  with  those  who  employ  ex- 
cellent English  will  ensure  reasonably  good  usage; 
in  fact,  such  association  is  almost  essential,  no  matter 
what  the  education  may  be;  but  the  knowledge  of 
the  language  so  acquired  generally  breaks  down  when 
it  is  applied  to  technical  matters  in  which  extreme 
accuracy  is  a  requisite,  and  in  which  the  terms  differ 
much  from  those  used  in  ordinary  conversation. 
There  is  no  royal  road  to  a  knowledge  of  English. 

Some  of  our  better  universities  are  now  offering 
a  six  years'  course  which  combines  the  usual  arts  and 
technical  courses,  each  of  which  ordinarily  occupies 
four  years,  but  which  have  many  subjects  in  common. 
This  is  a  decided  step  in  the  right  direction;  for 
technical  men  generally  are  coming  into  a  more 
complete  realization  of  their  deficiencies,  and  are 
insisting  that  young  technists  be  more  liberally 
educated.  The  professional  man  does  not  always 
remain  a  technist;  in  fact,  he  frequently  becomes  a 
man  of  affairs  as  well,  where  a  liberal  education  is 
even  more  essential  than  in  his  purely  technical  work. 

Before  passing  to  a  consideration  of  the  specific 
advantages  enjoyed  by  the  technical  man  who  uses 
good  English,  let  us  glance  at  some  of  the  grosser 
faults  of  which  so  many  are  guilty;  for  there  is  no 
better  way  to  attain  a  comprehension  of  the  good 


JOHN  LYLE  HARRINGTON 


than  by  contrasting  it  with  the  bad.  It  has  been 
well  said  that  it  is  no  virtue  to  speak  good  English, 
but  that  it  is  a  disgrace  to  use  bad  English. 

You  will  say  that  it  is  absurd  to  state  that  men  who 
have  graduated  from  college  cannot  spell  correctly, 
but  many  of  them  cannot.  S-e-d,  said;  p-e-a-r, 
pier,  are  extreme  but  true  examples.  It  is  very 
common  to  find  misspelled  words  in  letters  written 
by  young  engineers.  They  consider  such  errors  of 
no  material  consequence  because  they  are  not 
technical  errors.  The  mind  has  been  so  fixed  upon 
the  scientific  work  during  the  course  of  study,  and 
while  the  early  experience  is  being  acquired,  that  such 
matters  as  language  and  culture  seem  to  be  of  little 
importance.  But  the  recipient  of  the  letter  generally 
takes  a  different  view  of  the  matter;  for  he  justly 
considers  the  writer  something  of  an  ignoramus. 

Errors  of  spelling  and  punctuation  are  both  due  to 
unpardonable  carelessness  and  ignorance;  for  any 
one  can  learn  to  spell  and  to  pronounce  correctly, 
and  no  man  should  be  given  a  degree  or  a  diploma 
by  any  institution  of  learning  unless  he  does  so 
habitually. 

Grossly  bad  grammar  is  also  very  common.  It 
generally  arises  from  carelessness  in  ordering  the 
thought  and  speech  rather  than  from  lack  of  knowl- 
edge of  correct  usage,  but  it  is  frequently  attributed 
to  ignorance;  and  certainly  the  penalty  is  not  too 
severe.  In  many  instances,  however,  ignorance  is 
the  true  cause  of  the  error.  The  study  of  grammar 


VALUE  OF  ENGLISH  TO  THE  TECHNICAL  MAN      81 

commonly  ceases  when  the  student  leaves  the  graded 
schools.  Thereafter  he  assumes  that  his  knowl- 
edge of  the  subject  is  full  and  complete,  and  that  he 
need  give  it  no  further  attention,  notwithstanding 
the  fact  that  his  capacity  for  thought  and  the  need 
of  means  for  its  expression  continue  to  increase. 
His  vocabulary  grows;  but  his  knowledge  of  the 
fundamental  principles  which  govern  its  use  not  only 
does  not  expand  as  his  needs  require,  but  it  is 
allowed  to  become  uncertain  and  to  diminish  through 
lack  of  exercise.  When  the  matter  is  thought  of  at 
all,  it  is  assumed  that  in  some  vague,  uncertain 
way  habit  will  serve  instead  of  knowledge  and  under- 
standing. The  grammar  is  put  away  like  other 
childish  things. 

But  the  highest  skill  in  the  use  of  language  is  not 
attained  when  our  words  are  properly  spelled  or 
pronounced  and  our  sentences  formed  in  accordance 
with  the  rules  of  grammar.  In  fact,  these  are  only 
bare  and  absolute  essentials,  the  skeleton  of  our 
language  which  must  still  be  provided  with  flesh 
and  blood  and  nerves  before  it  will  live  and  fulfill 
its  mission.  The  whole  purpose  for  which  language 
is  employed  is  to  impress  our  thought  upon  others 
in  such  a  way  that  they  shall  feel  or  think  or  act  as 
we  desire.  To  attain  this  end  it  is  essential  that 
we  make  intelligent  use  of  the  arts  of  rhetoric  and 
oratory,  that  we  know  the  laws  of  composition, 
the  methods  of  ordering  and  constructing  our 
discourse  so  that  it  will  lead  the  minds  of  our  hearers 


82  JOHN  LYLE  HARRINGTON 

wherever  we  wish,  and  not  only  convey  our  thought 
but  induce  our  auditors  to  think  along  the  lines  that 
will  benefit  our  purpose. 

It  is  deplorably  rare  to  find  young  technical  men 
in  possession  of  an  intimate  knowledge  of  rhetoric. 
Business  correspondence  is  often  annoyingly  pro- 
tracted because  one  or  both  of  the  parties  conducting 
it  ignores  the  simple  law  of  unity,  and  fails  to  round 
out  and  complete  the  subject  under  discussion. 
Gross  errors  of  composition  are  quite  as  frequent  in 
the  correspondence  of  the  technically  educated  man 
as  they  are  in  that  of  the  ordinary  clerk  who  went 
to  work  when  he  left  the  grammar  school.  It  is 
because  engineers  are  so  little  accustomed  to  order 
their  thought  and  language  properly  that  they  have 
so  little  part  in  the  business  and  correspondence  of 
the  corporations  which  employ  them.  It  is  notori- 
ous that  a  technist  is  rarely  a  good  business  man. 
This  is  partly  because  of  the  exaggerated  importance 
he  gives  to  technical  matters,  but  very  largely  because 
his  thought  is  clumsily  expressed  and  awkwardly 
ordered. 

The  character  of  the  technical  man's  language  is 
important  in  his  social  and  business  intercourse; 
in  his  business  and  professional  correspondence; 
in  the  promulgation  of  orders,  rules,  and  regulations 
for  the  guidance  of  those  under  his  direction;  in  the 
preparation  of  specifications,  contracts,  and  reports; 
in  writing  and  delivering  addresses  and  technical 


VALUE  OF  ENGLISH  TO  THE  TECHNICAL  MAN     83 

papers;  and  in  writing  technical  books  for  the 
advancement  of  his  profession. 

In  conversation,  earnestness  and  force  may,  in 
some  measure,  counteract  the  evil  influence  of  bad 
English;  but  since  less  care  is  commonly  given  to 
the  spoken  word  than  to  the  written,  the  results 
of  bad  habits  of  speech  are  much  the  same  in  either 
case;  and  in  moments  of  special  interest  or  excite- 
ment the  habitual  language  is  employed.  Speech 
is  usually  heard  but  once;  therefore  its  errors  are 
much  more  likely  to  pass  unnoticed  than  those  which 
are  written  and  may  be  read  repeatedly;  and  the 
audience  of  the  speaker  is  much  more  limited  than 
that  of  the  writer;  therefore  it  would  seem  less 
important  to  speak  correctly  than  to  write  correctly. 
But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  in  conversation 
there  is  no  time,  as  a  rule,  to  give  thought  to  the  form 
of  speech;  and  that  all  the  errors  one  is  accustomed 
to  make  are  likely  to  occur.  The  habit  of  using 
good  English  should  be  so  firmly  fixed  that  one  is 
not  conscious  of  it. 

A  technical  man  is,  presumably,  an  educated  man; 
and  if  he  does  not  speak  like  one,  suspicion  is  cast 
upon  the  entire  range  of  his  learning.  When  a  man 
cannot  spell  correctly,  nor  use  ordinarily  good  gram- 
mar (and  there  are  many  university  men  who  can- 
not), it  is  difficult  to  convince  others  that  he  is  pro- 
fessionally able.  The  great  majority  of  technical 
men  occupy  salaried  positions  in  the  organizations 
of  railways,  governments,  constructing  companies, 


84  JOHN  LYLE  HARRINGTON 

and  manufacturing  corporations.  These  positions 
are  obtained  by  means  of  acquaintances  made  in  a 
social  way,  by  interview,  by  correspondence,  or  on 
account  of  an  earned  reputation.  Yet  I  have 
granted  interviews  to  many  technical  men  who  spoke 
like  common  laborers,  and  have  received  hundreds 
of  letters  from  them  that  would  be  a  disgrace  to  a 
grammar  school  student.  There  are  technically 
educated  men  who  say  "  I  have  saw,"  "  I  seen," 
and  "  I  done  ";  and  there  are  men  in  high  places  who 
require  no  further  proof  of  the  speaker's  ignorance, 
not  only  of  English  but  of  technical  matters  as  well. 
One  who  is  thus  ignorant  of  the  language  finds 
social  progress  substantially  impossible.  This  may 
seem  a  trivial  matter  and  foreign  to  our  purpose, 
but  it  is  not.  Matters  of  very  large  importance  are 
often  settled  by  favor,  and  favor  frequently  follows 
social  position.  Other  things  being  equal,  almost 
any  one  will  show  his  friend  the  preference  in  business 
or  professional  matters.  It  is  even  common  to 
stretch  a  point  in  favor  of  a  friend. 

Language  has  large  weight  in  classifying  a  man, 
infinitely  more  than  manner  or  dress.  It  exhibits 
his  breeding  and  indicates  his  social  status.  I  do 
not  mean  that  it  shows  whether  he  belongs  to  the 
so-called  "  Smart  Set,"  but  whether  he  is  of  the 
educated,  cultured  class,  whether  you  would  care  to 
entertain  him  at  all,  and,  if  so,  whether  you  would 
send  him  to  your  club,  or  whether  you  may  extend 
the  extreme  courtesy  of  inviting  him  to  your  home. 


VALUE  OF  ENGLISH  TO  THE  TECHNICAL  MAN      85 

This  may  appear  at  first  glance  to  be  of  small  con- 
sequence; but  great  things  often  result  from  asso- 
ciations quickly  formed.  In  fact,  such  social  rela- 
tions make  largely  for  success  or  failure  in  the  busi- 
ness or  professional  world.  Many  have  received 
the  opportunity  which  led  to  eminence  through  the 
recommendation  of  a  casual  acquaintance  who  was 
favorably  impressed. 

There  are  many  vocations  in  which  it  is  not  essen- 
tial that  a  man  be  cultured  and  intelligent;  but  the 
technical  professions  are  not  among  them.  Nothing 
so  surely  marks  a  man's  secret  habits  of  thought, 
his  real  character,  as  the  little  tricks  of  speech  which 
are  exhibited  when  his  mind  is  upon  the  matter 
rather  than  the  manner  of  his  speech.  If  his  thought 
be  habitually  coarse,  crude,  or  brutal,  his  speech 
will  make  the  fact  manifest  at  times;  and  the  speech 
of  a  moment  frequently  produces  a  permanent  and 
vital  effect. 

In  business  correspondence  the  value  of  good  usage 
is  still  more  manifest  than  in  conversation.  A  letter 
very  probably  passes  through  many  hands  and 
multiplies  the  good  or  bad  impressions  of  the  writer 
it  produces.  If  its  import  is  not  clear,  it  may  cause 
disagreement  or  involve  the  writer  in  a  serious 
financial  disadvantage.  Even  bad  punctuation  will 
often  seriously  alter  the  entire  meaning  of  a  sentence, 
and  particularly  bad  grammar  at  once  stamps  the 
writer  as  an  ignoramus.  The  art  of  letter  writing, 
like  a  knowledge  of  grammar,  is  commonly  considered 


86  JOHN  LYLE  HARRINGTON 

to  be  within  the  range  of  everyone's  learning  and 
skill;  but  anyone  who  has  had  large  experience  in 
business  correspondence  knows  that  few  men  write 
good  letters.  It  is  so  rare  to  find  a  matter  which  is 
composed  of  more  than  one  or  two  items  clearly, 
concisely,  and  thoroughly  discussed  in  a  letter  that 
favorable  attention  is  immediately  attracted  to  its 
writer.  Not  a  few  men  owe  the  opportunity  for 
advancement  to  their  ability  to  write  a  good  letter. 
Even  though  one  be  thoroughly  versed  in  his  sub- 
ject, and  his  discourse  be  well  worth  the  time  and 
attention  of  men  of  affairs,  bad  grammar  will  cast 
such  suspicion  over  his  whole  equipment  of  learning 
that  his  argument  will  often  be  put  aside  without 
substantial  consideration.  Bad  grammar  is  not  a 
bar  to  the  acquisition  of  money,  but  it  substantially 
prohibits  attainment  to  high  position  in  the  scientific 
world. 

The  detrimental  results  of  bad  English  in  con- 
versation or  in  correspondence  are  by  no  means  so 
certain  as  in  more  formal  technical  papers.  In  the 
preparation  of  articles  for  the  technical  press,  and 
papers  for  the  learned  societies,  there  is  time  to 
study  form  and  style  and  to  eliminate  errors  due  to 
haste;  hence,  when  such  matters  are  ill  written,  it 
is  not  unfairly  argued  that  the  writer  is  ignorant  of 
the  correct  use  of  the  language.  Such  an  opinion, 
widely  disseminated,  as  it  is  likely  to  be  when  it 
originates  thus,  is  exceedingly  detrimental  to  the 
writer.  It  weakens  his  arguments,  causes  him  to 


VALUE  OF  ENGLISH  TO  THE  TECHNICAL  MAN     87 

be  misunderstood,  or  so  detracts  from  the  interest 
of  his  readers  that  the  matter  is  not  read.  The 
idea  that  a  technical  paper  is  dry  at  best,  and  that 
the  English  employed  in  it  is  of  small  consequence, 
has  long  been  proved  incorrect.  There  is  so  much 
nowadays  that  is  well  written  that  no  busy  profes- 
sional man  is  willing  to  spare  the  extra  time  and 
effort  necessary  to  read  and  digest  an  ill  written 
paper. 

A  merchant  may  advertise  his  wares,  a  manufac- 
turer his  product,  but  reasonable  modesty  and  his 
code  of  ethics  prevent  a  professional  man  from  ad- 
vertising his  skill.  If  he  does  not  become  known 
by  his  work  or  his  writings,  he  remains  in  compara- 
tive obscurity.  His  ability  is  clearly  exposed  in  his 
writings,  in  which  he  gives  to  the  profession  his  best 
thought;  but  if  he  cannot  write  easily  and  well, 
he  will  probably  not  write  at  all;  for  the  censorship 
of  the  learned  societies  is  now  severe,  and  is  rapidly 
growing  more  so.  Every  successful  technical  man 
desires  to  leave  a  permanent  record  of  the  results 
of  his  best  thought  and  work  to  aid  his  co-workers 
and  successors.  An  ably  written  description  of  work 
performed,  discoveries  made,  or  methods  developed 
accomplishes  more  for  the  advancement  of  science 
than  many  well  designed  and  well  executed  construc- 
tions. The  latter  benefit  those  who  see  them;  the 
former  may  help  all  who  can  read. 

Provoking  and  expensive  errors  often  arise  from  the 
misunderstanding  of  badly  expressed  orders,  rules, 


88 JOHN  LYLE  HARRINGTON 

and  regulations.  In  large  corporations,  especially 
in  railway,  contracting,  and  engineering  companies, 
where  employees  are  distributed  over  a  wide  area, 
it  is  impossible  for  an  officer  to  give  individual  in- 
structions, or  to  see  personally  that  they  are  carried 
out;  hence,  general  instructions  must  be  so  clear 
that  they  cannot  be  misunderstood  or  evaded.  It  is 
hardly  necessary  to  say  that  the  consequences  of  a 
mistake  in  train  orders,  in  instructions  regarding 
breaking  track  for  repairs  or  renewals,  or  for  making 
temporary  construction  to  span  washouts,  may 
result  in  expensive  and  fatal  accidents.  And  even 
minor  errors,  oft  repeated,  may  prove  very  costly. 

But  the  preparation  of  reports,  specifications,  and 
contracts  is  the  most  particular  and  momentous 
task  the  technical  man  has  to  perform.  A  misused 
word,  a  phrase  whose  meaning  is  ambiguous,  a  para- 
graph that  is  confused,  or  the  omission  of  a  direction 
or  a  precaution,  may  result  in  great  damage  to  both 
the  client  and  the  technical  man.  It  is  not  enough 
to  be  careful  in  a  general  way.  Every  word,  every 
phrase,  every  sentence,  has  a  direct  and  vital  bearing 
on  the  work  governed  by  the  documents.  I  have 
known  the  presence  in  a  contract  of  a  single  word 
of  equivocal  meaning  to  cost  one  of  the  parties  many 
thousands  of  dollars,  though  when  the  contract  was 
drawn  there  was  no  question  regarding  the  intent 
of  the  parties  to  it.  Probably  the  majority  of  the 
civil  law  suits  are  caused  not  by  trickery  nor  deceit 
nor  dishonesty,  but  by  the  use  of  ambiguous  words 


VALUE  OF  ENGLISH  TO  THE  TECHNICAL  MAN     89 

and  phrases,  bad  ordering  of  the  matter,  incom- 
pleteness, and  other  faults  in  the  language  of  the 
correspondence,  specifications,  and  contracts.  There 
is  no  more  certain  way  for  the  engineer  to  protect 
his  own  and  his  client's  interests  than  to  prepare  all 
documents  in  accordance  with  the  best  English 
usage  as  well  .as  with  technical  skill;  and  there  is  no 
surer  way  to  lay  the  foundation  for  trouble  and 
financial  loss  than  to  neglect  the  character  of  his 
language. 

Notwithstanding  the  vital  importance  of  clear, 
concise,  and  full  expression  in  such  documents,  it 
is  not  uncommon  to  find  specifications  and  contracts 
so  bad  in  their  construction  that  they  fail  utterly 
in  their  purpose.  Let  me  quote  an  illustration  from 
the  specifications,  prepared  by  an  architectural  firm 
of  some  repute,  for  the  construction  of  a  building 
which  cost  nearly  one  hundred  thousand  dollars, 
i  "  Material  and  Workmanship.  The  entire  frame 
work,  columns,  beams,  etc.,  as  indicated  by  the 
framing  plans,  or  as  specified,  is  to  be  of  wrought 
steel,  of  quality  hereinafter  designated,  all  materials 
to  be  provided  and  put  in  place  by  this  contractor. 
All  work  to  be  done  in  a  neat  and  skillful  manner, 
and  is  to  guarantee  the  construction  and  workman- 
ship with  a  bond  equal  to  amount  of  tender  for  a  term 
of  five  years,  satisfactory  to  the  proprietor  and  archi- 
tects, to  properly  carry  or  support  the  loads  it  is 
designated  to  carry,  namely  its  own  weight,  the 
weight  of  the  several  floors,  roof  and  walls  resting 


90  JOHN  LYLE  HARRINGTON 

thereon,  a  10,000  gravity  tank,  and  the  pressure  of 
any  wind  which  may  not  be  designated  a  hurricane, 
and  future  three  stories.  The  floor  beams  are  to 
be  calculated  for  a  maximum  load  of  150  pounds 
to  the  square  foot  (using  C  type  IV  of  the  Clinton 
Fire-proof  system,  of  Clinton,  Mass.)  The  columns 
are  to  be  calculated  for  a  vertical  load  above  men- 
tioned and  for  horizontals  and  wind  pressure  and 
snow  pressure,  also  roof.  The  whole  to  be  calcu- 
lated heavy  enough  for  three  additional  stories  on 
building  should  they  be  put  on  at  any  time,  with 
connections  at  top  columns  to  receive  future  columns. 
The  columns  on  ground  floor  supporting  front  to  be 
calculated  in  same  proportion  with  all  the  rods  neces- 
sary where  shown.  The  whole  of  the  columns  to 
be  one  size  throughout,  those  that  carry  more  weight 
reinforced,  and  all  columns  to  be  kept  as  small  as 
possible  in  proper  construction.  Each  column  to 
have  f-inch  holes  bored  or  punched  every  4  ft. 
6  in.  in  height  on  each  corner  (for  use  of  other 
trades  to  fasten  metal  lath)." 

The  building  was  constructed  under  these  speci- 
fications, not  according  to  them;  that  would  be 
impossible.  But  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that 
the  proprietors  were  not  safeguarded.  The  wretched 
paragraph  quoted  is  no  worse  than  a  contractor 
finds  in  specifications  almost  every  day;  for  it  is 
composed,  as  a  large  number  of  engineers  and  archi- 
tects compose  their  specifications,  by  copying  and 
combining  sentences  or  paragraphs  from  various 


VALUE  OF  ENGLISH  TO  THE  TECHNICAL  MAN     91 

sources  instead  of  by  writing  them  from  knowledge 
of  the  construction  desired.  In  such  instances  the 
client  is  protected  more  by  the  honesty,  knowledge, 
and  skill  of  the  contractor  than  by  those  of  the 
architect. 

The  lawyers  and  the  courts  are  kept  busy  rectifying 
the  blunders  of  other  professional  men  who  do  ill 
what  they  are  paid  to  do  well.  I  know  of  one  con- 
tractor, grown  gray  in  the  business  of  constructing 
buildings,  who  has  never  completed  a  contract  with- 
out a  lawsuit,  and  who  has  never  lost  a  lawsuit. 
This  fact  speaks  ill  for  the  architects  under  whom 
he  worked,  yet  they  are  probably  no  worse  than  their 
fellows.  If  it  were  not  good  policy  to  be  reasonably 
honest,  many  another  contractor  might  easily 
approach  his  record. 

It  would  appear  that  we  have  given  more  atten- 
tion to  bad  than  to  good  English.  This  method  is 
not  illogical;  for,  manifestly,  if  the  bad  be  eliminated, 
the  good  will  remain;  and  if  the  evils  arising  from  the 
abuse  of  the  language  be  fully  comprehended,  there 
will  be  serious  endeavor  to  improve  the  usage.  The 
laws  of  the  language  are  commonly  violated  from 
mere  carelessness.  Slang  and  provincialisms  creep 
in,  and  destroy  its  force  and  elegance;  the  expression 
becomes  slovenly  and  the  thought  obscure;  and  what 
constitutes  good  English  is  forgotten. 

Language  itself  is  merely  an  instrument.  The 
sole  service  English  can  render  is  to  convey  the  speak- 


92  JOHN  LYLE  HARRINGTON 

er's  thought  and  purpose  fully  and  accurately  to 
the  minds  of  his  auditors.  But  this  service  alone 
will  amply  repay  years  of  study  and  a  life  of  care  in 
and  attention  to  the  use  of  the  English  language. 


VI 

THE  VALUE  OF  THE  CLASSICS  IN  ENGI- 
NEERING EDUCATION 

CHARLES  PROTEUS  STEINMETZ 

[THOUGH  Mr.  Harrington  regards  the  study  of  English  largely 
from  a  utilitarian  point  of  view,  he  does  not  overlook  its  cultural 
importance.  The  value  of  an  acquaintance  with  the  best  in 
literature — a  value  which  he  merely  suggests — is  considered  by 
Dr.  Steinmetz  (1865-  )  in  the  following  address;  and  though 
the  latter  limits  his  consideration  to  the  classics  of  Greece  and 
Rome,  which  few  expect  to  see  reinstated,  what  he  says  is  ap- 
plicable to  the  masterpieces  of  the  vernacular  which  take  their 
readers  into  periods  remote  from  theirs  in  temper  and  attainment. 
That  his  observations  are  not  without  authority  must  be  obvious 
to  all  who  are  familiar  with  the  facts  of  his  career.  Though  these 
are  generally  known,  it  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  recall  that  he 
was  educated  in  Germany  and  Switzerland;  that  he  is  Professor 
of  Electro-Physics  in  Union  College,  and  that,  as  Consulting 
Engineer  to  the  General  Electric  Company,  he  stands  at  the 
head  of  his  profession.  His  books  on  electricity  and  mathe- 
matics have  become  standard.  His  miscellaneous  essays  have 
something  of  the  same  imaginative  outlook.  The  extract  below, 
which  is  the  first  part  of  an  address  delivered  before  various 
groups  of  engineers,  is  reprinted,  by  permission  of  the  author 
and  the  editor  of  the  Engineering  News-Record,  from  the  Engi- 
neering Record  of  August  9,  1913.  The  title  is  that  under  which 
it  appears  in  different  form  in  the  Proceedings  and  Transactions 
of  the  American  Institute  of  Electrical  Engineers,  of  which 
Dr.  Steinmetz  is  a  past  president.  Several  passages  from  this 
version  are  incorporated  in  the  text.] 

For  ages  the  classics,  comprising  the  Greek  and 
Latin  languages  and  the  literatures  of  those  lan- 

93 


94  CHARLES  PROTEUS  STEINMETZ 

guages,  have  been  the  foundation  of  all  education; 
but  in  the  last  two  generations  they  have  been  more 
and  more  pushed  into  the  background  by  the 
development  of  empirical  science  and  its  application, 
engineering.  The  flood  tide  of  this  tendency  has 
just  passed,  and  it  is  beginning  to  be  realized  that 
this  narrow  utilitarian  training  has  been  a  failure. 
Few  professional  and  business  men  with  it  have 
reached  prominence  in  scientific  and  national  life, 
and  the  urgent  need  of  return  to  a  broader  educa- 
tion is  becoming  more  evident  from  year  to  year. 

Ours  is  an  age  of  science  and  engineering,  of  in- 
dustrial development  and  progress.  The  unfet- 
tering of  human  initiative  and  ability  by  the  French 
Revolution  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century 
and  the  opening  of  the  vast  resources  of  our  conti- 
nent gave  opportunities  which  never  existed  before, 
and  impatiently  youth  chafed  against  wasting  time 
in  education  instead  of  "  doing  things  "  by  grasping 
the  opportunities.  Fortunately  for  the  intellectual 
progress  of  the  race,  these  opportunities  are  gone, 
and  intelligence  and  knowledge  again  are  replacing 
chance  and  grasping.  Education  thus  becomes  the 
essential  requirement  in  determining  success  in  life. 

Education  is  not  the  learning  of  a  trade  or  profes- 
sion, but  the  development  of  the  intellect  and  the 
broadening  of  the  mind  afforded  by  a  general 
knowledge  of  all  subjects  of  interest  to  the  human 
race.  These  enable  a  man  to  attack  intelligently 
and  solve  problems  in  which  no  previous  experience 


VALUE  OF  THE  CLASSICS  IN  EDUCATION  95 

guides,  and  to  decide  the  questions  arising  in  his 
intellectual,  social,  and  industrial  life  by  impartially 
weighing  the  different  factors  and  judging  their 
relative  importance.  These  problems — and  thus 
the  educational  preparation  required  to  cope  with 
them — are  practically  the  same  in  all  walks  of  life, 
and  the  general  education  required  by  the  engineer, 
the  lawyer,  and  the  physician  is  thus  essentially  the 
same.  The  only  legitimate  differences  are  those 
pertaining  to  the  details  of  the  particular  branch  of 
human  knowledge  by  which  the  student  desires  to 
make  his  living. 

The  amount  of  human  knowledge  has  grown  so 
vast  that  no  single  mind  can  master  it  all.  That 
means  that  we  must  limit  ourselves  to  a  part, 
usually  even  a  small  part,  of  human  knowledge- 
must  specialize;  and  ours,  therefore,  has  been  called 
an  age  of  specialists.  It  must  be  realized,  however, 
that  the  value  of  the  specialist  in  the  social  organism 
is  in  direct  proportion  to  the  general  knowledge 
which  he  possesses.  Special  knowledge,  no  matter 
how  extensive  and  intensive,  is  of  very  little  value  if 
not  intelligently  directed  and  applied.  This  requires 
broadness  of  view  and  common  sense,  which  only 
a  broad,  general  education  can  give,  but  which  no 
special  training  supplies;  special  training  rather 
tends  to  narrow  the  view  and  to  hinder  a  man  from 
taking  his  proper  position  as  a  useful  member  of 
society.  Examples  of  this  we  can  see  all  around  us, 
especially  in  the  business  man,  in  the  lawyer,  and, 


96  CHARLES  PROTEUS  STEINMETZ 

more  still,  in  the  engineer,  because  the  vocation  of 
the  engineer  is  especially  liable  to  make  a  man  one- 
sided. By  dealing  exclusively  with  empirical 
science  and  its  applications  the  engineer  is  led  to 
forget,  or  never  to  realize,  that  there  are  other 
branches  of  human  thought  besides  empirical  science 
equally  important  as  factors  in  education  and  intel- 
lectual development.  An  introduction  to  these 
other  fields  is  best  and  most  quickly  secured  by  the 
study  of  the  classics,  which  open  to  the  student 
worlds  entirely  different  from  the  present — the  world 
of  art  and  literature,  of  Greece,  and  the  world  of 
organization  and  administration,  of  Rome — and  so 
broaden  his  horizon  and  show  relative  values  in 
their  proper  proportion  and  not  distorted  by  the 
trend  of  thought  of  his  time. 

There  have  always  been  educated  and  uneducated, 
skilled  and  unskilled  workers.  But  with  the  develop- 
ment of  modern  industrialism  a  third  class  has 
arisen  between  the  skilled  and  the  unskilled,  the 
educated  and  the  uneducated — men  trained  to  do 
one  thing  only,  but  to  do  this  very  well  and  efficiently. 
We  call  them  pieceworkers  when  working  for  wages  in 
the  factory,  specialists  when  receiving  salaries  as 
professional  men.  They  are  tools,  useful  when  di- 
rected by  somebody's  intelligence,  but  useless  to 
themselves  and  to  the  world  otherwise.  The  product 
of  many  of  our  engineering  schools  and  business 
colleges  is  of  this  character.  Some  of  these  men 
may  become  intelligent  and  educated  human  beings 


VALUE  OF  THE  CLASSICS  IN  EDUCATION          97 

and  useful  members  of  society  afterward,  it  is  true, 
but  their  schooling  will  not  make  them  such. 

A  skilled  mechanic  may  finally  specialize  in  one 
class  of  work,  but  that  does  not  make  him  an  un- 
skilled pieceworker.  An  engineer,  physician,  or 
other  professional  man  may  devote  his  time  to  one 
branch  of  his  profession;  but  so  long  as  he  keeps  up 
his  interest  in  and  his  familiarity  with  his  entire 
profession,  and  with  all  the  problems  of  the  work 
surrounding  him,  he  has  not  yet  deteriorated  into 
a  specialist. 

The  greatest  problem  before  the  educational  world 
to-day  is  the  method  of  broadening  education  to 
counteract  the  narrowing  tendency  of  modern  life 
and  modern  industrialism,  and  to  produce  the  in- 
tellectual development  and  broadening  of  the  mind 
which  create  not  merely  intellectual  machines, 
but  citizens  capable  of  taking  their  proper  place  in 
the  industrial  and  social  life  of  the  nation — men  who 
can  be  trusted  to  direct  the  destinies  of  the  Republic 
during  the  stormy  times  of  industrial  and  social 
reorganization  which  are  before  us. 

Modern  society  is  dominated  by  industrialism, 
the  outgrowth  of  applied  science;  that  is,  by  engi- 
neering. The  entire  world  has  been  unified,  and 
whether  we  travel  through  the  European  countries, 
or  see  the  civilizations  of  the  Far  East,  we  find 
no  material  differences  from  the  intellectual  and  social 
conceptions  of  our  country.  Thus  the  broadening 
effect  of  the  study  of  other  nations  and  countries 


98  CHARLES  PROTEUS  STEINMETZ 

has  largely  vanished.  Wherever  we  go,  we  meet 
similar  conditions — the  same  scientific  and  religious 
beliefs,  the  same  organization  of  society — and  we  are 
very  liable  to  draw  the  conclusion  that  our  condi- 
tions, our  beliefs,  our  form  of  society,  are  the  best 
and  the  only  feasible  ones;  that  civilization  could 
not  exist  without  them,  and  that  any  radical  change 
would  be  destructive  to  civilization.  But  self- 
satisfaction  means  stagnation,  and  stagnation  means 
decay;  and  herein  lies  the  foremost  danger  of  our 
civilization. 

The  remedy  is  knowledge  of  and  familiarity  with 
another  civilization,  different  from  ours  in  character, 
superior  in  some  respects,  inferior  in  others. 

Nobody  familiar  with  Greece  in  its  prime  can  ever 
believe  that  the  highest  development  of  art,  science, 
and  literature  which  the  world  has  seen  cannot  exist 
in  the  freest  form  of  democracy — a  democracy  so 
free  and  unrestrained  as  to  be  almost  anarchism. 
Nobody  familiar  with  the  Alexandrian  Period  can 
deny  that  science  can  flourish  under  an  autocratic 
monarchy.  A  purely  communistic  nation  held 
Greece  for  centuries.  For  centuries  the  centralized 
federal  government  of  Rome  maintained  the  peace 
and  guarded  the  civilization  of  the  entire  civilized 
world,  and  many  countries  under  Rome's  dominion 
enjoyed  a  civilization  which  they  had  never  reached 
before. 

It  is  this  difference  of  the  ancient  civilization  from 
the  present  which  makes  the  study  of  the  classics  of 


VALUE  OF  THE  CLASSICS  IN'SftUeAT'IjON',  '/>  99:  : 


importance  and  almost  of  necessity  in  order  to 
counteract  the  equalizing  and  leveling  tendency 
exerted  by  present-day  conditions  and  to  give  the 
broadening  which  is  the  most  important  object  of 
education. 


MATHEMATICS 


VII 

THE  PLACE  OF  MATHEMATICS  IN  ENGI- 
NEERING PRACTICE 

SIR  WILLIAM  HENRY  WHITE 

[THROUGH  scholarship  and  practice  Sir  William  Henry  White 
(1845-1913)  was  admirably  qualified  to  discuss  the  relations 
between  mathematics  and  engineering.  As  a  professor  in  the 
Royal  School  of  Naval  Architecture  and  the  Royal  Naval  Col- 
lege, he  helped  to  shape  recent  theories  of  marine  construction. 
As  an  engineer,  however,  his  influence  was  even  more  notable. 
While  head  of  the  shipbuilding  department  of  Armstrong, 
Mitchell,  and  Company  he  designed  the  Takachiho  for  Japan 
and  the  Charlestown  for  the  United  States,  introducing  many 
improvements  over  the  older  cruiser  types.  On  becoming  Direc- 
tor of  Naval  Construction,  a  position  which  he  occupied  for 
seventeen  years,  he  developed  the  battleship  types  which  were 
standard  in  most  navies  during  the  last  twenty  years  of  his  life. 
Nor  were  his  activities  limited  to  men-of-war;  for  it  was  largely 
through  his  efforts  that  turbines  were  adopted  on  large  passenger 
ships.  Among  the  250  vessels  which  he  designed  and  constructed 
is  the  giant  Mauretania.  Sir  William  was  not  only  teacher  and 
practitioner,  but  also  author  of  several  valuable  monographs. 
The  following  address,  delivered  before  the  Fifth  International 
Congress  of  Mathematicians,  is  reprinted,  by  permission  of  the 
editor,  from  Nature,  September  19,  1912.] 

The  foundations  of  modern  engineering  have  been 
laid  on  mathematics  and  physical  science;  the  prac- 
tice of  engineering  is  now  governed  by  scientific 

103 


104  SIR  WILLIAM  HENRY  WHITE 

methods  applied  to  the  analysis  of  experience  and 
the  results  of  experimental  research.  Engineering 
has  been  defined  as  "  the  art  of  directing  the  great 
sources  of  power  in  Nature  for  the  use  and  con- 
venience of  man."  An  adequate  acquaintance  with 
the  laws  of  Nature,  and  obedience  to  those  laws, 
are  essential  to  the  full  utilization  of  these  sources  of 
power.  It  is  now  universally  recognized  that  the 
educated  engineer  must  possess  a  knowledge  of  the 
sciences  which  bear  upon  his  professional  duties 
as  well  as  thorough  practical  training  and  experi- 
ence in  actual  engineering  work.  Of  these  sciences 
the  mathematical  is  undoubtedly  of  the  greatest 
importance.  The  range  and  character  of  mathe- 
matical knowledge  which  can  be  considered  adequate 
are  gradually  being  agreed  upon  as  experience  is 
enlarged;  and  present  ideas  are  embodied  in  the 
course  of  study  prescribed  in  the  calendars  of 
schools  of  engineering. 

The  preponderance  of  opinion  amongst  engineers 
now  favors  the  teaching  of  science  in  general,  and 
of  mathematics  in  particular,  on  lines  which  shall 
ensure  greater  breadth  of  view  and  fuller  capability 
for  dealing  with  new  problems  arising  in  professional 
work.  Whatever  branch  of  engineering  a  man  may 
select  for  his  individual  practice,  he  must  have 
a  fundamental  knowledge  of  mathematics;  and  in 
some  branches,  in  order  to  do  his  work  well,  he  will 
have  to  add  considerably  to  the  mathematical  knowl- 
edge which  is  sufficient  for  a  degree. 


PLACE  OF  MATHEMATICS  IN  PRACTICE  105 

As  time  passes,  the  mathematician  and  the  practi- 
cing engineer  have  come  to  understand  each  other 
better,  and  to  be  mutually  helpful.  While  engineers 
as  a  class  cannot  claim  to  have  made  many  important 
or  original  contributions  to  mathematical  science, 
some  men  trained  as  engineers  have  done  notable 
work  of  a  mathematical  character.  The  names  of 
Rankine,  William  Froude,  and  John  Hopkinson 
among  British  engineers  hold  an  honored  place 
in  mathematics.  Mathematicians  of  eminence  have 
spent  their  lives  in  the  tuition  of  engineers,  and  in 
that  way  have  greatly  influenced  the  practice  of 
engineering;  but  while  they  have  necessarily  become 
familiar  with  the  problems  of  engineering  as  a 
consequence  of  their  connection  with  it,  they  have 
not  accomplished  much  actual  engineering  work, 
and  none  of  it  has  been  of  first  importance.  Broadly, 
there  is  an  abiding  distinction  between  mathe- 
maticians and  engineers.  Mathematicians  regard 
engineering  chiefly  from  the  scientific  point  of  view, 
and  are  primarily  concerned  with  the  bearing  of 
mathematics  on  engineering  practice,  the  con- 
struction of  theories,  and  the  framing  of  useful 
rules.  Engineers,  even  when  well  equipped  with 
mathematical  knowledge,  are  primarily  devoted  to 
the  design  and  construction  of  efficient  and  durable 
works,  their  main  object  being  to  secure  the  best 
possible  association  of  efficiency  and  economy,  and  so 
to  achieve  practical  and  commercial  success.  There 
is  evidently  room  for  both  classes;  and  their  collabo- 


106  SIR  WILLIAM  HENRY  WHITE 

ration  in  modern  times  has  produced  wonderful 
results. 

The  proper  use  of  mathematics  in  engineering 
practice  is  now  generally  agreed  to  include  the 
development  of  a  mathematical  theory  based  on 
assumptions  which  are  thought  to  embody  and  to 
represent  conditions  disclosed  by  past  practice  and 
observation.  Frequently  these  theoretical  investi- 
gations give  rise  to  valuable  suggestions  for  further 
observation  or  experimental  investigations.  Useful 
rules  are  also  devised,  in  many  instances,  which 
serve  for  guidance  in  the  future  practice  of  engineers. 
Formerly  it  was  thought  by  men  of  science  that 
purely  mathematical  investigation  and  reasoning 
would  do  all  that  was  required  for  the  guidance  of 
engineering  practice.  It  is  now  admitted  that  such 
investigations  will  not  suffice,  and  that  the  chief 
services  which  can  be  rendered  to  engineering  by 
mathematicians  consist  in  the  suggestion  of  the  best 
directions  and  methods  for  experimental  research, 
the  conduct  of  observations  on  the  behavior  of  exist- 
ing works,  the  establishment  of  general  principles 
based  on  analysis  of  experience,  and  the  framing 
of  practical  rules  embodying  scientific  principles. 

The  contrast  between  present  and  past  methods 
can  be  illustrated  by  comparing  investigations  made 
during  the  eighteenth  century  into  the  behavior 
of  ships  amongst  waves  by  Daniel  Bernoulli,  who  won 
the  prize  offered  by  the  Royal  French  Academy  of 
Science  in  1757,  and  work  done  by  William  Froude 


PLACE  OF  MATHEMATICS  IN  PRACTICE  107 

a  century  later  in  connection  with  the  same  sub- 
jects. Bernoulli  was  the  greater  mathematician, 
but  had  only  a  small  knowledge  of  the  sea  and  of 
ships.  His  memoir  was  a  mathematical  treatise; 
his  practical  rules,  although  deduced  from  mathe- 
matical investigations  which  were  themselves  cor- 
rect, depended  upon  certain  fundamental  assump- 
tions which  did  not  correctly  represent  either  the 
phenomena  of  wave  motion  or  the  causes  producing 
and  limiting  the  rolling  oscillations  of  ships.  Ber- 
noulli realized  and  dwelt  upon  the  need  for  further 
experiment  and  observation,  and  showed  remarkable 
insight  into  what  was  needed;  but  the  fact  remains 
that  he  neither  made  such  experiments  himself  nor 
was  able  to  induce  others  to  make  them.  As  a 
consequence  his  practical  rules  for  the  guidance  of 
naval  architects  were  incorrect,  and  would  have 
produced  mischievous  results  if  they  had  been  applied 
in  practice. 

William  Froude  was  a  trained  engineer  who  had  a 
good  knowledge  of  mathematics  and  a  mathematical 
mind.  His  acquaintance  with  the  sea  and  ships 
was  considerable,  his  skill  as  an  experimentalist 
was  remarkable,  and  he  was  fortunate  enough  to 
secure  the  support  of  the  Admiralty  through  the 
Constructive  Department.  He  thus  obtained  the 
services  of  the  officers  of  the  Royal  Navy  in  making 
ra  long  series  of  accurate  and  detailed  observations 
of  the  characteristic  features  of  ocean  waves  as  well 
as  of  the  rolling  ships  amongst  them.  In  this  way, 


108  SIR  WILLIAM  HENRY  WHITE 

starting  with  the  formulation  of  a  mathematical 
theory  of  wave  motion,  Froude  added  corrections 
based  on  experimental  research,  and  succeeded  even- 
tually in  devising  methods  by  means  of  which 
naval  architects  can  make  close  approximations  to 
the  probable  behavior  of  ships  of  new  design.  In 
these  approximations  allowance  can  be  made  for  the 
effect  of  water  resistance  to  the  rolling  motion — a 
most  important  factor  in  the  problem  which  could  not 
be  dealt  with  until  experimental  research  had  been 
made,  and  results  had  been  subjected  to  mathe- 
matical analysis.  In  addition,  Froude  laid  down 
certain  practical  rules  for  the  guidance  of  naval 
architects,  and  the  application  of  these  rules  has 
been  shown  by  long  experience  to  favor  the  steadi- 
ness— that  is,  the  comparative  freedom  from  roll- 
ing— of  ships  designed  in  accordance  with  them.  In 
short,  a  problem  which  had  proved  too  difficult 
when  attacked  by  Daniel  Bernoulli  in  purely  mathe- 
matical fashion  was  solved  a  century  later  by 
Froude,  who  employed  a  combination  of  mathe- 
matical treatment  and  experimental  research. 

Another  example  of  the  contrast  between  earlier 
and  present  methods  is  to  be  fcund  in  the  treatment 
of  the  resistance  offered  by  water  to  the  onward 
motion  of  ships.  At  an  early  date  mathematicians 
were  attracted  to  this  subject,  and  many  attempts 
were  made  to  frame  mathematical  theories.  When 
steam  propulsion  for  ships  was  introduced,  the 
matter  became  of  great  practical  importance  because 


PLACE  OF  MATHEMATICS  IN  PRACTICE  109 

it  was  necessary  to  make  estimates  for  the  engine 
power  required  to  drive  a  ship  at  the  desired  speed. 
In  making  such  estimates  it  was  necessary  to  ap- 
proximate to  the  value  of  the  water  resistance  at 
that  speed,  although  the  required  engine  power 
was  also  influenced  by  the  efficiency  of  the  propelling 
apparatus  and  propellers.  In  addition,  it  was  ob- 
vious that  the  water  resistance  to  the  motion  of  a 
ship  when  she  was  driven  by  her  propellers  at  a  given 
speed  would  be  in  excess  of  the  resistance  experi- 
enced if  she  were  towed  at  the  same  speed,  and  there 
was  no  exact  knowledge  in  regard  to  that  increment 
of  resistance.  The  earlier  mathematical  theories 
of  resistance  proved  to  be  of  little  or  no  service,  and 
they  were  based  on  erroneous  and  incomplete 
assumptions.  Rankine  devised  a  "  stream-line " 
theory  which  was  superior  to  its  predecessors,  but  it 
also  for  a  time  had  no  effect  on  the  practice  of  naval 
architects.  William  Froude,  adopting  this  stream- 
line theory,  dealt  separately  with  frictional  resist- 
ance, and  devised  a  "  law  of  comparison  "  at  corre- 
sponding speeds  by  which  from  the  "  residual  resist- 
ance "  of  models — exclusive  of  friction — it  became 
possible  to  estimate  the  corresponding  residual  resist- 
ance for  ships  of  similar  forms.  At  first  he  stood 
alone  in  advocating  these  views,  but  subsequent 
experience  during  forty  years  has  demonstrated 
their  soundness. 

Experimental  tanks  for  testing  models  of  ships, 
such  as  Froude  introduced,  are  now  established  in  all 


110  SIR  WILLIAM  HENRY  WHITE 

maritime  countries,  and  the  results  obtained  from 
them  are  of  enormous  value  in  the  designing  of 
steamships.  In  regard  to  the  selection  of  the  forms 
of  ships,  naval  architects  are  now  able  to  proceed 
with  practical  certainty;  but  in  the  design  of  screw 
propellers,  even  after  model  experiments  have  been 
made  with  alternative  forms  of  screws,  there  is  still 
great  uncertainty,  and  dependence  upon  the  results 
obtained  on  "  progressive  "  speed  trials  of  ships  is 
still  of  the  greatest  service.  As  yet  the  "  law  of 
comparison  "  between  model  screws  and  full-sized 
screws  has  not  been  determined  accurately.  The 
condition  of  the  water  in  which  screws  act,  as 
influenced  by  the  advance  of  a  ship  and  her  frictional 
wake,  the  phenomena  attending  the  passage  of  the 
water  through  a  screw,  and  the  impression  on  it 
of  sternward  motion  from  which  results  the  thrust 
of  the  propeller,  the  effect  upon  that  thrust  of  varia- 
tions in  the  forms  and  areas  of  the  blades  of  screw 
propellers,  and  the  causes  of  "cavitation" — all  form 
subjects  demanding  further  investigation.  In  these 
cases  the  only  hope  of  finding  solutions  lies  in  the 
association  of  experimental  research  with  mathe- 
matical analysis.  There  have  been  very  many 
mathematical  theories  of  the  action  of  screw  pro- 
pellers, but  none  of  these  have  provided  the  means 
for  dealing  practically  with  the  problems  of  propeller 
design,  and  there  is  no  hope  that  any  purely  mathe- 
matical investigation  ever  will  do  so,  because  the 
conditions  which  should  be  included  in  the  funda- 


PLACE  OF  MATHEMATICS  IN  PRACTICE  111 

mental  equations  are  complex  and  to  a  great  extent 
undetermined. 

In  connection  with  other  branches  of  engineering, 
model  experiments  have  also  proved  effective.  Ex- 
amples are  to  be  found  in  connection  with  the  esti- 
mates for  wind  pressure  on  complicated  engineering 
structures  such  as  girder  or  cantilever  bridges.  Ex- 
perimental methods  are  also  being  applied  with  great 
advantage  to  the  study  of  aeronautics  and  the  prob- 
lems of  flight. 

The  association  of  the  mathematical  analysis  of 
past  experience  with  designs  for  new  engineering 
works  of  all  kinds  is  both  necessary  and  fruitful 
of  benefits.  A  striking  example  of  this  procedure  is 
to  be  found  in  connection  with  the  structural  arrange- 
ments of  ships  of  unprecedented  size,  which  have  to 
be  propelled  at  high  speeds  through  the  roughest 
seas,  to  carry  heavy  loads,  to  be  exposed  to  great 
and  rapid  changes  in  the  distribution  of  weight 
and  buoyancy,  and  to  be  subjected  simultaneously 
to  rolling,  pitching,  and  heavy  motion,  as  well  as  to 
blows  of  the  sea.  In  such  a  case  purely  mathematical 
investigation  would  be  useless;  the  scientific  inter- 
pretation of  past  experience  and  the  comparison  of 
results  of  calculations  based  on  reasonable  hypotheses 
for  ships  which  have  seen  service  with  similar  results 
of  calculations  for  ships  of  new  design  are  the  only 
means  which  can  furnish  guidance. 

In  the  past  the  association  of  mathematicians  and 
engineers  has  done  much  towards  securing  remark- 


112  SIR  WILLIAM  HENRY  WHITE 

able  advances  in  engineering  practice;  and  in  the 
future  it  may  be  anticipated  that  still  greater 
results  will  be  attained  now  that  the  true  place 
of  mathematicians  in  that  practice  is  better  under- 
stood. 


VIII 

ON  THE  RELATION  OF  MATHEMATICS  TO 
ENGINEERING 

ARTHUR  RANUM 

[WiTH  Sir  William  White's  address  on  the  place  of  mathe- 
matics in  engineering  practice  it  is  interesting  to  contrast  Pro- 
fessor Ranum's  essay  on  the  same  subject,  which  is  reprinted, 
by  permission  of  the  author  and  editor,  from  the  Sibley  Journal 
of  Engineering,  January,  1914.  Arthur  Ranum  (1870-  )  was 
educated  at  the  University  of  Minnesota,  at  Cornell  University, 
and  at  the  University  of  Chicago.  He  has  taught  mathematics 
in  the  University  of  Washington,  in  the  University  of  Wiscon- 
sin, in  the  Leland  Stanford,  Jr.  University,  and  in  Cornell 
University.  It  is  not  surprising,  then,  that  his  attitude  should 
be  conditioned  by  the  academic  ideal,  and  that  he  should  revert 
to  the  necessity  of  mathematics  for  its  own  sake.] 

How  can  we  reconcile  the  fact  that  many  a  suc- 
cessful engineer  uses  very  little  mathematics  in  his 
work  with  the  further  well-known  fact  that  the  pro- 
fession of  engineering  rests  to  a  large  extent  on  a 
mathematical  foundation?  This  question  has  many 
phases,  one  of  which  we  can  answer  by  pointing  out 
that  there  is  a  vast  difference  between  developing 
the  mathematical  theory  that  applies  to  an  engineer- 
ing problem  and  merely  making  use  of  the  theory 
after  it  has  been  developed  and  put  in  tabular  form 

"3 


114  ARTHUR  RANUM 


by  someone  else.  The  latter  process  does  not  require 
very  high  mathematical  attainments,  but  is  sufficient 
for  many  practical  purposes.  In  order  to  gain  more 
light,  however,  on  this  and  other  similar  questions, 
let  us  try,  if  possible,  to  determine  precisely  what 
contributions  mathematics  has  made  to  engineering; 
by  looking  back  into  the  past,  perhaps  we  shall  dis- 
cover some  general  law  that  will  enable  us  to  peer 
a  little  into  the  future. 

Engineering  has  been  defined  as  the  art  of  directing 
the  great  sources  of  power  in  Nature  for  the  use  and 
convenience  of  man.  Now  power  implies  energy, 
force,  motion.  Modern  science  has  shown  that 
all  the  phenomena  of  Nature,  including  heat,  light, 
and  electricity,  are  manifestations  of  energy,  modes 
of  motion.  In  order  to  direct  the  forces  of  Nature, 
we  must  know  how  they  act,  we  must  understand 
the  laws  underlying  the  different  kinds  of  motion, 
molecular  as  well  as  molar.  Mechanics  is  then 
the  fundamental  science  on  which  engineering 
depends.  The  other  branches  of  physics  reduce,  in 
the  last  analysis,  to  mechanics.  Now  in  the  case 
of  a  moving  body,  molecule,  or  electron  the  first 
thing  we  want  to  know  is  its  velocity,  and  the 
next  is  its  acceleration.  Both  of  these  are  rates  of 
change  or  derivatives.  Hence  it  is  the  most  natural 
thing  in  the  world  to  introduce  the  calculus  into 
mechanics.  The  mathematical  notion  of  a  deriva- 
tive is  not  something  imposed  upon  mechanics  from 
without;  it  belongs  to  the  very  essence  of  the 


ON  THE  RELATION  OF  MATHEMATICS  115 

science.  Every  waterfall,  every  bird  on  the  wing, 
every  ray  of  sunlight,  every  flash  of  lightning, 
when  interpreted  in  mechanical  terms,  speaks  the 
language  of  the  calculus. 

We  must  guard,  however,  against  the  error  of  sup- 
posing that  mathematics  can  furnish  us  with  any 
of  the  facts  on  which  the  laws  governing  physical 
phenomena  are  based.  These  facts  can  be  found 
only  by  observation  and  experiment.  But  when  once 
a  precise  physical  law  has  been  discovered,  the  func- 
tion of  mathematics  is,  first,  to  provide  it  with  a 
language  adequate  to  express  all  its  complex  and 
delicate  content,  and,  second,  to  interpret  its 
hidden  meaning  and  derive  the  consequences  that 
flow  from  it  when  the  other  known  physical  laws 
are  taken  into  account.  This  means  that  the 
mathematician  builds  on  the  given  foundation  of 
experimental  laws  a  logical  structure,  which  often 
contains  new  theorems  of  far  greater  physical  signif- 
icance than  the  original  ones  from  which  they  are 
derived.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  mathematics  has 
been  described  as  the  master-key  that  unlocks  the 
secrets  of  Nature. 

Sometimes,  moreover,  a  mathematical  develop- 
ment of  this  kind  leads  in  the  most  unexpected 
fashion  to  important  practical  applications.  The 
delicate  and  exhaustive  experiments  and  far-reaching 
generalizations  of  the  physicist,  the  profound  and 
searching  analysis  and  rigorous  thinking  of  the 
mathematician,  the  ingenious  and  practical  resource- 


116  ARTHUR  RANUM 


fulness  of  the  inventor,  are  all  three  necessary  factors 
in  the  progress  of  engineering.  The  influence  of  the 
last  of  these,  the  inventor,  although  more  direct  and 
easily  understood  than  the  others,  is  not  therefore 
necessarily  the  most  important.  On  the  contrary, 
his  work  is  often  a  mere  corollary  of  the  scientific 
research  which  has  prepared  the  way  for  him.  The 
history  of  science  furnishes  countless  illustrations 
of  this.  The  development  of  electricity  in  general, 
and  the  discovery  of  wireless  telegraphy  in  particular, 
are  striking  examples,  which  I  cannot  describe  better 
than  by  quoting  from  Whitehead's  recent  Introduc- 
tion to  Mathematics. 

''  The  momentous  laws  of  electric  induction  were 
discovered  by  Michael  Faraday  in  1831-32.  Fara- 
day was  asked:  '  What  is  the  use  of  this  discovery? ' 
He  answered :  '  What  is  the  use  of  a  child — it  grows 
to  be  a  man.'  Faraday's  child  has  grown  to  be  a 
man,  and  is  now  the  basis  of  all  the  -modern  applica- 
tions of  electricity.  .  .  .  His  ideas  were  extended 
and  put  into  a  directly  mathematical  form  by 
Clerk  Maxwell  in  1873.  As  a  result  of  his  mathe- 
matical investigations,  Maxwell  recognized  that 
under  certain  conditions  electric  vibrations  ought  to 
be  propagated.  He  at  once  suggested  that  the 
vibrations  which  form  light  are  electrical.  This 
suggestion  has  since  been  verified;  so  that  now  the 
whole  theory  of  light  is  nothing  but  a  branch  of  the 
great  science  of  electricity.  Also  Herz,  a  German, 
in  1888,  following  on  Maxwell's  ideas,  succeeded  in 


ON  THE  RELATION  OF  MATHEMATICS  117 

producing  electric  vibrations  by  direct  electrical 
methods.  His  experiments  are  the  basis  of  our 
wireless  telegraphy.'* 

We  shall  appreciate  the  important  place  which 
mathematics  occupies  in  practical  affairs  if  we  try 
to  imagine  what  would  happen  if  all  the  contribu- 
tions which  mathematics  has  made,  and  which  noth- 
ing else  could  make  to  the  progress  of  engineering, 
were  suddenly  withdrawn.  The  result  would  ob- 
viously be  terrific;  it  would  mean  nothing  less 
than  the  total  collapse  of  all  industry  and  commerce, 
and  indeed  the  complete  annihilation  of  all  the 
external  evidences  of  our  material  civilization. 

"  But  why,"  asks  the  practical  man,  "  do  mathe- 
maticians and  physicists  concern  themselves  so  much 
about  certain  fields  of  research  which  can  never,  in 
all  likelihood,  lead  to  practical  results?  "  Two  good 
reasons  can  be  given.  First  of  all,  truth  is  one  and 
indivisible;  every  part  of  the  structure  of  truth 
has  some  bearing  on  every  other  part.  Sometimes 
the  most  theoretical  investigation  is  nearest  to  the 
most  practical  application.  Nothing  could  at  first 
have  seemed  further  removed  from  the  concerns 
of  our  daily  life  than  the  study  of  the  radiant  energy 
connected  with  Crooke's  tubes,  on  the  one  hand, 
or  the  use  of  the  so-called  imaginary  numbers, 
on  the  other;  and  yet  look  at  the  practical  value 
of  X-rays  and  of  alternating  currents,  the  latter 
depending  essentially  on  these  same  imaginary 
numbers. 


118  ARTHUR  RANUM 


Moreover,  certain  branches  of  mathematics  are 
no  less  important  because  their  influence  is  indirect. 
In  order  to  gain  a  thorough  understanding  of  alter- 
nating currents,  we  must  study  the  properties  of 
Fourier's  series;  and  to  understand  Fourier's  series, 
we  must  study  the  theory  of  functions  and  of  differ- 
ential equations.  These  latter,  again,  depend  on 
various  other  disciplines  like  the  theory  of  equations 
and  the  theory  of  groups.  We  can  never  know  too 
much  about  the  space  in  which  we  live;  hence  the 
practical  value  of  the  modern  developments  of 
geometry,  projective  and  metrical,  analytic  and 
synthetic,  algebraic  and  differential,  Euclidean  and 
non-Euclidean,  and  even  ^-dimensional — because 
from  one  important  point  of  view  our  ordinary  space 
is  four-dimensional. 

But  a  more  fundamental  reason  why  truth  should 
be  pursued  for  its  own  sake  is  the  simple  fact  that 
man  is  endowed  with  a  divine  curiosity,  a  desire  to 
penetrate  the  secrets  of  Nature.  He  wants  to 
understand,  among  other  things,  the  outer  physical 
universe  in  which  he  is  immersed,  and  also  the  inner 
universe  of  logical  thought  revealed  by  mathe- 
matics. Are  not  the  wonders  of  non-Euclidean 
geometry  and  non-Newtonian  mechanics  sufficiently 
valuable  in  themselves  without  any  reference  to 
their  practical  bearing?  The  recent  discovery  that 
the  atom,  formerly  thought  to  be  indivisible,  is 
really  a  complete  world  in  itself,  a  sort  of  solar 
system,  so  to  speak,  is  surely  of  immense  interest 


ON  THE  RELATION  OF  MATHEMATICS  119 

to  every  thinking  person,  merely  as  affording  a 
glimpse  into  one  of  the  hidden  recesses  of  truth. 

Although  the  sciences  of  mathematics  and  physics 
are  very  closely  related,  they  have  not  always  kept 
perfect  step  with  one  another  in  their  development. 
This  fact  is  due  partly  to  insuperable  difficulties  on 
the  one  side  or  the  other,  and  partly  to  an  unfor- 
tunate lack  of  cooperation  between  mathematicians 
and  physicists.  Fcr  instance,  the  physicist  has 
sometimes  come  to  the  mathematician  for  the  solu- 
tion of  a  problem,  but  has  been  compelled  to  wait 
a  long  time  for  the  proper  theory  to  be  developed. 
A  classic  instance  is  the  problem  of  three  bodies 
in  astronomy,  which  still  awaits  a  general  solution, 
although  an  enormous  amount  of  labor  has  been 
expended  on  it,  and  particular  solutions  for  various 
special  cases  are  constantly  being  discovered.  Many 
other  physical  problems  could  be  cited  which  re- 
semble this  in  the  fact  that  they  lead  to  differential 
equations  whose  solutions  cannot  be  found  except 
in  terms  of  new  transcendental  functions  whose 
properties  have  not  yet  been  investigated. 

More  often,  however,  the  mathematician  develops 
a  body  of  doctrine,  and  only  after  a  long  interval 
does  it  turn  out  to  have  important  applications  to 
physics  or  engineering.  The  pure  mathematics  of 
one  epoch  becomes  the  applied  mathematics  of  a 
later  epoch.  Maxwell's  theory  of  electricity,  before 
referred  to,  is  a  case  in  point;  the  mathematics 
he  used  depends  essentially  on  principles  which 


120  ARTHUR  RANUM 


had  been  known  for  a  long  time.  The  discovery 
of  the  calculus  was  due  to  the  attempt  to  find  the 
lengths  and  areas  of  curves;  later  its  immense  sig- 
nificance in  the  science  of  mechanics  was  realized. 
The  conic  sections  were  investigated  by  the  Greeks 
over  two  thousand  years  ago;  and  even  to-day 
we  are  constantly  finding  fresh  uses  for  them. 
Logarithms  were  discovered  three  hundred  years 
ago;  and  the  logarithmic  function  (or  the  com- 
pound interest  law)  now  proves  to  be  one  of  the 
commonest  and  most  important  laws  governing 
the  phenomena  of  Nature.  The  elliptic  functions 
were  first  invented  as  pure  mathematics,  and  then 
applied  to  the  motion  of  the  pendulum  and  other 
physical  problems.  The  theory  of  groups  has  found 
a  most  unexpected  application  to  the  problem  of 
determining  the  different  types  of  crystal  struc- 
ture. Very  recently  the  principle  of  relativity  has 
appeared  on  the  scene  and  threatens  to  revolu- 
tionize the  science  of  mechanics;  but  its  natural 
geometric  interpretation  turns  out  to  be  a  non- 
Euclidean  geometry  that  has  been  known  for  thirty 
years  or  more. 

The  history  of  Fourier's  series  is  a  fine  illustra- 
tion of  the  mutual  dependence  of  mathematics  and 
physics.  Originally  due  to  the  solution  of  a  prob- 
lem in  the  flow  of  heat,  it  soon  acquired  a  position 
of  capital  importance  in  pure  mathematics  as  the 
general  expression  for  a  simply  periodic  function. 
But  since  periodicity  is  a  well-nigh  universal  law 


ON  THE  RELATION  OF  MATHEMATICS  121 

of  Nature,  Fourier's  series  soon  returned  to  the 
physical  camp,  where  it  now  serves  as  the  appro- 
priate vehicle  for  expressing  a  large  number  of 
different  kinds  of  periodic  motion,  including  sound 
waves  and  alternating  currents. 

Can  we  make  any  prediction  as  to  the  future 
prospects  of  engineering?  If  progress  continues 
along  the  lines  followed  in  the  past,  one  thing,  at 
least,  we  can  foresee  with  great  confidence — the 
pure  and  applied  mathematics  of  to-day,  with  its 
enormous  and  ever-growing  body  of  splendid  achieve- 
ments, will  surely  lead,  sooner  or  later,  to  a  variety 
of  practical  applications  and  new  inventions  that 
will  startle  the  world.  The  material  and  utilitarian 
progress  of  to-morrow  will  depend  largely  on  the 
scientific  progress  of  to-day.  Moreover,  the  in- 
creasing demand  for  accuracy  and  efficiency  in 
engineering  can  be  met  only  by  broadening  and 
strengthening  its  mathematical  foundations.  Many 
an  engineering  student  of  to-day  will  live  to  see  the 
time  when  those  engineers  who  are  leaders  in  their 
profession,  who  are  capable  of  meeting  novel  con- 
ditions where  originality  of  thought  and  action 
are  required,  will  be  men  who  are  better  equipped 
on  the  scientific  side  than  we  think  necessary  to- 
day; they  will  be  men  who  are  thoroughly  trained 
in  the  use  of  many  of  the  higher  branches  of  what 
we  now  call  pure  mathematics. 


PHYSICS 


IX 

THE   IMPORTANCE  OF   PHYSICS  TO  THE 
ENGINEER 

MATTHEW  ALBERT  HUNTER 

[THE  two  points  of  view  from  which  Professor  Ranum  ap- 
proaches the  subject  of  mathematics  are  adopted  by  Professor 
Hunter  in  his  consideration  of  the  importance  of  physics  to  the 
engineer.  Matthew  Albert  Hunter  (1878-  )  was  educated 
in  the  University  of  New  Zealand  and,  under  Sir  William 
Ramsay,  in  the  University  of  London.  For  several  years  he 
was  engaged  in  the  research  laboratories  of  the  General  Electric 
Company.  Since  1910  he  has  been  Professor  of  Electrochem- 
istry in  the  Rensselaer  Polytechnic  Institute.  His  chief  inves- 
tigations have  been  connected  with  the  metallurgy  of  titanium 
and  the  electrical  resistances  of  alloys.] 

The  science  of  physics  is  beyond  doubt  the  oldest 
of  the  exact  sciences.  From  the  earliest  period, 
the  dependence  of  man  on  the  physical  universe 
brought  him  into  contact  with  the  forces  of  Nature. 
It  is  not  improbable,  then,  that  in  the  process  of 
evolution  his  thoughts  were  directed  from  the  first 
towards  the  relation  of  the  individual  to  his  sur- 
roundings. The  effects  of  rain  and  sunshine,  of 
heat  and  cold,  and  of  other  physical  phenomena 
thus  came  under  his  observation. 

125 


126  MATTHEW  ALBERT  HUNTER 

From  these  elementary  considerations  it  is  a  far 
step  to  the  records  of  history.  Throughout  the  pre- 
historic period,  however,  the  facts  of  Nature  were 
observed  so  continually  that  the  earliest  records 
contain  much  information  that  might  have  served 
as  the  basis  of  physical  science. 

Nevertheless,  the  dawn  of  the  modern  era  began 
only  with  Galileo.  In  his  day  physical  science 
dropped  the  mantle  of  mysticism  with  which  it 
had  been  wrapped.  When  the  human  mind  first 
conceived  the  idea  that  natural  phenomena  cannot 
be  referred  to  occult  principles,  but  must  be  explained 
by  reference  to  certain  physical  laws,  the  first  step 
was  taken  in  the  evolution  of  the  modern  scientific 
spirit.  Henceforth  physical  science  was  no  longer 
subjective;  it  became  experimental. 

Theories  may  be  evolved  to  explain  the  facts  of 
Nature.  Always,  however,  these  theories  must  be 
tested  by  experiment.  A  theory  first  presents  itself 
only  as  a  working  hypothesis.  When  the  hypothesis 
has  stood  the  test  of  experiment,  it  is  invested  with 
the  sanction  of  natural  law.  By  this  experimental 
method  the  modern  science  of  physics  has  been 
developed.  As  a  result  we  now  possess  a  fund  of 
accumulated  evidence — correlated,  clarified,  and 
simplified — which  serves  to  explain  the  phenomena 
of  experience  and  to  aid  in  future  discoveries. 

This  accumulation  of  experience  forms  the  basis 
of  education.  We  must  not  suppose,  however,  that 
the  mind  is  to  become  a  storehouse  of  fact,  or  an 


THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  PHYSICS  127 

encyclopaedia  of  information.  Where  this  is  so, 
the  significance  of  education  has  been  missed. 
In  his  studies  the  student  must  acquire  clearness 
of  thought  and  independence  of  action.  Indeed, 
if  choice  must  be  made  between  fact  and  ability 
to  think,  the  latter  will  prove  of  greater  value.  He 
alone  is  truly  educated  who  can  use  the  facts  of 
experience  as  a  guide  to  direct  his  thoughts  and 
to  determine  his  actions.  From  this  point  of  view 
the  science  of  physics  may  be  regarded  as  one  of 
the  essentials  of  education. 

It  is  clear  that  all  branches  of  experimental 
science  had  their  origin  in  physics.  Chemistry  and 
medicine,  astronomy  and  geology,  are  all  offshoots 
from  the  parent  stem.  To-day,  however,  the  science 
is  restricted  to  a  consideration  of  the  phenomena  of 
mechanics,  heat,  sound,  light,  and  electricity.  It 
deals  essentially  with  the  relations  between  the 
various  forms  of  energy  and  the  various  forms  of 
matter.  In  discussing  the  importance  of  physics 
to  the  engineer,  let  us  analyze  the  value  of  these 
branches  of  physics  individually  and  collectively  in 
his  education. 

We  may  approach  the  subject  from  the  two 
angles  indicated,  considering  the  question,  first, 
from  a  purely  utilitarian,  and,  second,  from  a  purely 
intellectual  point  of  view. 

The  utilitarian  value  of  the  different  branches  of 
physics  is  obvious.  Statics  and  dynamics  form  an 


128  MATTHEW  ALBERT  HUNTER 

essential  foundation  for  the  civil  engineer,  elec- 
tricity is  essential  to  the  electrical  engineer,  but 
even  from  the  point  of  view  of  utility  it  would 
be  unwise  to  confine  the  studies  of  the  civil  engineer 
to  the  former,  or  of  the  electrical  engineer  to  the 
latter.  Both  these  fields  have  interlocking  interests. 
In  his  daily  occupation  the  civil  engineer  is  not 
confined  to  subjects  which  are  peculiar  to  civil 
engineering.  The  electrical  engineer  has  contributed 
much  that  is  useful  to  the  profession  of  civil  engi- 
neering, and  for  this  reason  the  civil  engineer  should 
seek  a  working  acquaintance  with  the  facts  of 
electrical  engineering.  And  what  has  been  said  of 
civil  and  electrical  engineering  applies  in  like  degree 
to  all  other  branches  of  engineering. 

It  is  sometimes  difficult  for  the  student  of 
applied  science  to  realize  the  importance  of  the 
study  of  sound.  Yet  in  some  fields  it  is  of  great 
value.  A  study  of  the  propagation  of  sound  waves 
forms  a  stepping  stone  to  the  study  of  the  propa- 
gation of  waves  of  radiant  energy,  whether  of  heat, 
or  light,  or  electricity.  The  principle  of  resonance, 
so  easily  understood  in  sound,  has  been  extended 
with  notable  results  to  the  study  of  telephone  and 
radio  engineering.  A  study  of  harmonics  in  vibra- 
ting systems  has  proved  of  vast  importance  to  the 
electrical  engineer  in  the  study  of  alternating  current. 

For  this  reason,  then,  it  is  not  sufficient  for  the 
student  to  consider  that  part  of  physics  which 
deals  with  his  particular  subject  alone.  The  founda- 


THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  PHYSICS  129 

tion  for  a  course  of  study  in  any  branch  of  engi- 
neering should  be  laid  by  a  course  in  all  the  sub- 
divisions of  physics  which  are  recognized  as  the 
bases  of  the  separate  branches  of  engineering. 

In  considering  next  the  intellectual  value  of 
physics,  we  enter  upon  a  subject  which  is  of  even 
greater  importance  than  the  utilitarian  aspect  which 
we  have  just  considered.  It  has  been  said  that 
the  value  of  a  college  education  lies  in  what  remains 
after  everything  that  has  been  learned  in  college 
has  been  forgotten.  There  is  considerable  truth 
in  this  curious  paradox.  The  habit  of  study,  the 
power  of  concentration,  the  practice  of  thought, 
and  the  confidence  which  comes  from  independence 
in  concept  and  action, — all  these  are  as  invaluable 
in  engineering  as  in  other  walks  of  life. 

Now,  the  study  of  physics  leads  to  the  develop- 
ment of  these  qualities  in  a  remarkable  degree. 
Next  to  mathematics,  physics  is  probably  the  most 
exacting  of  all  the  sciences.  Among  the  experimental 
sciences  it  stands  preeminent.  Experimentally,  it 
calls  in  large  measure  for  dexterity  in  manipulation 
and  accuracy  in  observation.  The  deductions  drawn 
from  experiments  give  a  valuable  training  in  clear 
and  rigorous  thinking. 

To  paraphrase  the  paradox  cited:  If  at  the 
end  of  a  course  in  physics  a  student  forgets  the 
facts,  he  will  still  be  rewarded  for  the  time  which 
he  has  spent.  The  facility  obtained  by  experimental 


130  MATTHEW  ALBERT  HUNTER 

manipulation,  the  habit  of  clear,  logical  thought, 
and  the  power  of  deduction  which  he  has  acquired 
are  valuable  assets. 

Another  aspect  of  the  question  must  still  be 
considered.  No  field  of  engineering  remains  sta- 
tionary. Each  succeeding  generation  of  engineers 
pushes  the  boundaries  of  knowledge  forward  into 
the  unknown.  This  spirit  of  research,  seeking  to 
extend  the  old,  or  to  discover  the  new,  is  a  powerful 
influence  in  modern  engineering.  The  initial  stage 
in  this  research  is  carried  on  in  laboratories  devoted 
to  pure  science.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  the 
laboratory  practice  in  pure  science  of  to-day  is 
the  engineering  practice  of  to-morrow.  To  take 
but  two  examples.  The  observation  of  Seebeck  in 
1822  of  the  electromotive  force  developed  by  heat 
at  the  junction  of  two  dissimilar  metals  has  given 
rise  to  an  excellent  system  of  pyrometric  measure- 
ment. The  experiments  of  Faraday  in  1831  on 
electromagnetic  induction  form  the  basis  of  modern 
practice  in  electrodynamics.  The  ultimate  utility 
of  any  discovery  cannot  be  immediately  gauged. 
Its  potentialities,  however,  are  always  great;  and 
here  lies  the  value  of  research  in  engineering. 

It  is  easy  to  follow.  To  blaze  a  trail  into  the 
unknown  requires  knowledge  of  what  lies  behind 
and  insight  into  what  lies  beyond.  Success  in  re- 
search comes  seldom  from  the  accidental  stumblings 
of  the  uneducated.  More  often  it  is  attained  by 


THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  PHYSICS  131 

those  whose  education  has  been  laid  on  the  firm 
foundations  of  the  science  on  which  all  engineering 
is  based. 

But  progress  in  any  specific  field  does  not  come 
always  from  within  the  field  itself.  However  firm 
may  be  one's  foundation  in  any  branch  of  engi- 
neering, one's  vision  should  reach  beyond.  To  this 
end  a  knowledge  of  all  branches  of  physics  is  abso- 
lutely necessary. 

This  relation  between  physics  and  engineering 
can  be  easily  exemplified.  The  principles  involved 
in  the  kinetic  theory  of  matter  would  seem  at  first 
sight  to  have  little  interest  for  the  civil  engineer. 
Yet  based  on  this  theory  is  much  of  our  knowledge 
of  molecular  mechanics,  of  great  value  in  the  con- 
sideration of  the  elasticity  and  strength  of  materials. 
Again,  the  microscope  has  been  called  to  aid  the 
engineer.  Through  it  has  been  formulated  the  new 
science  of  metallography,  which  forms  a  valuable 
adjunct  to  the  information  needed  in  structural 
development. 

The  abstract  theory  of  surface  tension  and  capil- 
larity would  seem  to  have  little  relation  to  engi- 
neering progress.  Yet  on  these  phenomena  is  based 
the  flotation  of  minerals,  one  of  the  greatest  advances 
in  metallurgy  during  the  last  decade.  In  this  case, 
however,  practice  has  outrun  theory.  We  still  re- 
quire explanations  of  many  such  phenomena. 

The  principles  of  osmosis  and  dialysis  were  first 
developed  as  physical  phenomena.  To-day  they 


132  MATTHEW  ALBERT  HUNTER 

stand  as  the  bases  of  colloid  chemistry,  furnishing 
useful  information  regarding  many  commercial  proc- 
esses in  chemical  engineering.  For  much  of  this 
development  the  ultramicroscope  is  responsible. 

To  the  chemical  engineer  catalytic  processes  are 
becoming  increasingly  important.  Much  argument 
still  hovers  around  the  question  as  to  whether 
catalysis  is  a  physical  or  a  chemical  process.  Here 
again  it  is  evident  that  theory  lags  behind  practice. 
The  physicist  must  be  called  to  the  aid  of  the  chemist 
before  a  solution  can  be  expected.  These  examples 
of  the  contributions  of  pure  science  to  engineering 
might  be  multiplied  indefinitely.  Enough,  however, 
has  been  said  to  show  that  the  fundamental  theories 
of  all  branches  of  physics  are  valuable  additions  to 
the  stock  in  trade  of  the  engineer. 

In  concluding  this  plea  for  the  study  of  physics 
as  a  pure  science,  it  is  only  necessary  to  summarize 
what  has  been  said. 

The  study  of  dynamics,  of  heat,  sound,  light,  and 
electricity,  which  form  the  separate  branches  of  the 
science  of  physics,  is  the  foundation  of  all  engi- 
neering. From  the  point  of  view  of  immediate  utility 
a  thorough  understanding  of  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples is  desirable. 

In  dealing  with  the  relations  of  force  and  energy 
to  matter  the  science  of  physics  is  the  most  exact 
of  all  the  experimental  sciences.  A  course  of 
study  in  it  leads  to  habits  of  clear  and  concise 


THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  PHYSICS  133 

thinking.  Experimentally,  it  develops  skill  in  ma- 
nipulation and  independence  of  action. 

Again,  progress  in  engineering  comes  through 
coordinated  research.  In  this,  depth  of  knowledge 
alone  is  not  sufficient;  breadth  is  also  essential. 
For  this  reason  the  prospective  engineer  should 
study  all  branches  of  physics,  and  not  alone  that 
in  which  his  particular  interest  lies. 

All  these  points  relate  to  the  immediate  utility 
of  physics  to  the  engineer.  No  mention  has  been 
made  of  the  study  of  physics  in  its  relation  to  the 
engineer  as  a  man.  In  this  connection,  however, 
attention  might  be  drawn  to  the  pleasure  which 
is  to  be  derived  from  the  study  for  its  own  sake, 
a  pleasure  which  must  be  experienced  in  order  to 
be  appreciated.  In  examining  the  coordination 
found  in  the  orderly  working  of  natural  law,  a 
student  will  be  amply  repaid  by  the  satisfaction 
which  comes  with  the  knowledge  of  truth. 


X 

MODERN  PHYSICS 
ROBERT  ANDREWS  MILLIKAN 

BY  no  scientist  has  the  ideal  of  truth  for  its  own  sake  been 
accepted  more  absolutely  than  by  the  physicist,  who,  as  Pro- 
fessor Hunter  has  indicated,  has  contributed  more  than  any 
other  to  the  progress  of  engineering;  and  by  no  writer  has  that 
ideal  been  formulated  more  attractively  than  by  Professor 
Millikan.  Robert  Andrews  Millikan  (1868-  ),  educated  at 
Oberlin  College,  at  Columbia  University,  at  the  University  of 
Berlin,  and  at  the  University  of  Gottingen,  is  one  of  the  leading 
physicists  of  America.  At  present  he  is  Professor  of  Physics 
in  the  University  of  Chicago,  vice-Chairman  of  the  National 
Research  Council,  and  Chief  of  the  Science  and  Research 
Division  of  the  Signal  Corps.  The  extract  below,  forming 
an  introduction  to  a  survey  of  recent  developments  in  physics, 
is  reprinted,  by  permission  of  the  author  and  editor,  from  the 
Proceedings  of  the  American  Institute  of  Electrical  Engineers 
for  September,  1917.] 

The  spirit  of  modern  science  is  something  rela- 
tively new  in  the  history  of  the  world,  and  I  want 
to  give  an  analysis  of  what  it  is.  I  want  to  take 
you  up  in  an  aeroplane  which  flies  in  time  rather 
than  in  space,  and  look  down  with  you  upon  the 
high  peaks  that  distinguish  the  centuries,  and  let 
you  see  what  is  the  distinguishing  characteristic 

134 


MODERN  PHYSICS  135 


of  the  century  in  which  we  live.  I  think  there  will 
be  no  question  at  all,  if  you  get  far  enough  out  of 
it  so  that  you  can  see  the  woods  without  having 
your  vision  clouded  by  the  proximity  of  the  trees, 
that  the  thing  which  is  characteristic  of  our  modern 
civilization  is  the  spirit  of  scientific  research — a 
spirit  which  first  grew  up  in  the  subject  of  physics, 
and  which  has  spread  from  that  to  all  other  sub- 
jects of  modern  scientific  inquiry. 

That  spirit  has  three  elements.  The  first  is  a 
philosophy;  the  second  is  a  method,  and  the  third 
is  a  faith. 

Look  first  at  the  philosophy.  It  is  new  for  the 
reason  that  all  primitive  peoples,  and  many  that 
are  not  primitive,  have  held  a  philosophy  that  is 
both  animistic  and  fatalistic.  Every  phenomenon 
which  is  at  all  unusual,  or  for  any  reason  not  imme- 
diately intelligible,  used  to  be  attributed  to  the 
direct  action  of  some  invisible  personal  being. 
Witness  the  peopling  of  the  woods  and  streams  with 
spirits,  by  the  Greeks;  the  miracles  and  possession 
by  demons,  of  the  Jews;  the  witchcraft  manias  of 
our  own  Puritan  forefathers,  only  two  or  three 
hundred  years  ago. 

That  a  supine  fatalism  results  from  such  a  phi- 
losophy is  to  be  expected;  for  according  to  it  every- 
thing that  happens  is  the  will  of  the  gods,  or  the 
will  of  some  more  powerful  beings  than  ourselves. 
And  so,  in  all  the  ancient  world,  and  in  much  of 


136 ROBERT  ANDREWS  MILLIKAN  

the  modern  also,  three  blind  fates  sit  down  in 
dark  and  deep  inferno  and  weave  out  the  fates  of 
men.  Man  himself  is  not  a  vital  agent  in  the 
march  of  things;  he  is  only  a  speck,  an  atom  which 
is  hurled  hither  and  thither  in  the  play  of  mysterious, 
titanic,  uncontrollable  forces. 

Now,  the  philosophy  of  physics,  a  philosophy 
which  was  held  at  first  timidly,  always  tentatively, 
always  as  a  mere  working  hypothesis,  but  yet  held 
with  ever  increasing  conviction  from  the  time  of 
Galileo,  when  the  experimental  method  may  be 
said  to  have  had  its  beginnings,  is  the  exact  antith- 
esis of  this.  Stated  in  its  most  sweeping  form, 
it  holds  that  the  universe  is  rationally  intelligible, 
no  matter  how  far  from  a  complete  comprehension 
of  it  we  may  now  be,  or  indeed  may  ever  come 
to  be.  It  believes  in  the  absolute  uniformity  of 
Nature.  It  views  the  world  as  a  mechanism,  every 
part  and  every  movement  of  which  fits  in  some 
definite,  invariable  way  into  the  other  parts  and 
the  other  movements;  and  it  sets  itself  the  inspir- 
ing task  of  studying  every  phenomenon  in  the 
confident  hope  that  the  connections  between  it 
and  other  phenomena  can  ultimately  be  found. 
It  will  have  naught  of  caprice.  Such  is  the  spirit, 
the  attitude,  the  working  hypothesis  of  all  modern 
science;  and  this  philosophy  is  in  no  sense  mate- 
rialistic, because  good,  and  mind,  and  soul,  and 
moral  values, — these  things  are  all  here  just  as 
truly  as  are  any  physical  objects;  they  must  simply 


MODERN  PHYSICS  137 


be  inside  and  not  outside  of  this  matchless  mech- 
anism. 

Second,  as  to  the  method  of  science.  It  is  a 
method  practically  unknown  to  the  ancient  world; 
for  that  world  was  essentially  subjective  in  all  its 
thinking,  and  built  up  its  views  of  things  largely 
by  introspection.  The  scientific  method,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  a  method  which  is  completely  objec- 
tive. It  is  the  method  of  the  working  hypothesis 
which  is  ready  for  the  discard  the  very  minute  that 
it  fails  to  work.  It  is  the  method  which  believes 
in  a  minute,  careful,  wholly  dispassionate  analysis 
of  a  situation;  and  any  physicist  or  engineer  who 
allows  the  least  trace  of  prejudice  or  preconception 
to  enter  into  his  study  of  a  given  problem  violates 
the  most  sacred  duty  of  his  profession.  This 
present  cataclysm,  which  has  set  the  world  back  a 
thousand  years  in  so  many  ways,  has  shown  us  the 
pitiful  spectacle  of  scientists  who  have  forgotten 
completely  the  scientific  method,  and  who  have 
been  controlled  simply  by  prejudice  and  precon- 
ception. This  fact  is  no  reflection  on  the  scientific 
method;  it  merely  means  that  these  men  have  not 
been  able  to  carry  over  the  methods  they  use  in 
their  science  into  all  the  departments  of  their 
thinking.  The  world  has  been  controlled  by  preju- 
dice and  emotionalism  so  long  that  reversions  still 
occur;  but  the  fact  that  these  reversions  occur 
does  not  discredit  the  scientist,  nor  make  him 


138  ROBERT  ANDREWS  MILLIKAN 

disbelieve  in  his  method.  Why?  Simply  because 
that  method  has  worked,  it  is  working  to-day,  and 
its  promise  of  working  to-morrow  is  larger  than  it 
has  ever  been  before  in  the  history  of  the  world. 

Do  you  realize  that  within  the  life  of  men  now 
living,  within  a  hundred  years,  or  one  hundred  and 
thirty  years  at  most,  all  the  external  conditions 
under  which  man  lives  his  life  in  this  earth  have 
been  more  completely  revolutionized  than  during 
all  the  ages  of  recorded  history  which  preceded? 
My  great-grandfather  lived  essentially  the  same 
kind  of  life,  so  far  as  external  conditions  were  con- 
cerned, as  did  his  Assyrian  prototype  six  thousand 
years  ago.  He  went  as  far  as  his  own  legs,  or  the 
legs  of  his  horse,  could  carry  him.  He  dug  his 
ditch,  he  mowed  his  hay,  with  the  power  of  his  own 
two  arms,  or  the  power  of  his  wife's  two  arms, 
with  an  occasional  lift  from  his  horse  or  his  ox. 
He  carried  a  dried  potato  in  his  pocket  to  keep 
off  rheumatism,  and  he  worshipped  his  God  in 
almost  the  same  superstitious  way.  It  was  not  until 
the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  that  the 
great  discovery  of  the  ages  began  to  be  borne  in 
upon  the  consciousness  of  mankind  through  the 
work  of  a  few  patient,  indefatigable  men  who  had 
caught  the  spirit  which  Galileo  perhaps  first  notably 
embodied,  and  passed  on  to  Newton,  to  Franklin, 
to  Faraday,  to  Maxwell,  and  to  the  other  great 
architects  of  the  modern  scientific  world  in  which 
we  live, — the  discovery  that  man  is  not  a  pawn  in 


MODERN  PHYSICS  139 


a  game  played  by  higher  powers,  that  his  external 
as  well  as  his  internal  destiny  is  in  his  own  hands. 

You  may  prefer  to  have  me  call  that  not  a  dis- 
covery but  a  faith.  Very  well!  It  is  the  faith 
of  the  scientist,  and  it  is  a  faith  which  he  will  tell 
you  has  been  justified  by  works.  Take  just  this 
one  illustration,  suggested  by  the  opening  remarks 
of  your  President.  In  the  mystical  fatalistic  ages 
electricity  was  simply  the  agent  of  an  inscrutable 
Providence;  it  was  Elijah's  fire  from  Heaven  sent 
down  to  consume  the  enemies  of  Jehovah,  or  it 
was  Jove's  thunderbolt  hurled  by  an  angry  god; 
and  it  was  just  as  impious  to  study  so  direct  a 
manifestation  of  God's  power  in  the  world  as  it 
would  be  for  a  child  to  study  the  strap  with  which 
he  is  being  punished,  or  the  mental  attributes  of 
the  father  who  wields  the  strap.  It  was  only  one 
hundred  and  fifty  years  ago  that  Franklin  sent 
up  his  famous  kite,  and  showed  that  thunder  bolts 
are  identical  with  the  sparks  which  he  could  draw 
on  a  winter's  night  from  his  cat's  back.  Then, 
thirty  years  afterwards,  Volta  found  that  he  could 
manufacture  them  artificially  by  dipping  dissimilar 
metals  into  an  acid.  And,  thirty  years  further 
along,  Oersted  found  that,  when  tamed  and  running 
noiselessly  along  a  wire,  they  will  deflect  a  magnet; 
and  with  that  discovery  the  electric  battery  was 
born,  and  the  erstwhile  blustering  thunderbolts 
were  set  the  inglorious  task  of  ringing  house  bells, 


140  ROBERT  ANDREWS  MILLIKAN 

primarily  for  the  convenience  of  womankind.  Ten 
years  later  Faraday  found  that  all  he  had  to  do  to 
obtain  a  current  was  to  move  a  wire  across  the  pole 
of  a  magnet,  and  in  that  discovery  the  dynamo 
was  born,  and  our  modern  electrical  age,  with  its 
electric  transmission  of  power,  its  electric  lighting, 
its  electric  telephoning,  electric  toasting,  electric 
foot  warming,  and  electric  milking.  All  that  is 
an  immediate  and  inevitable  consequence  of  that 
discovery — a  discovery  which  grew  out  of  the  faith 
of  a  few  physicists  that  the  most  mysterious,  the 
most  capricious,  and  the  most  terrible  of  natural 
phenomena  is  capable  of  a  rational  explanation  and 
ultimately  amenable  to  human  control. 

At  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century  there  were 
many  physicists  and  engineers  who  thought  that 
all  the  great  discoveries  had  been  made.  It  was 
a  common  statement  that  this  was  so.  I  heard 
it  made  publicly  in  1894,  and  yet  within  a  year 
of  that  time  I  happened  to  be  present  in  Berlin 
at  the  meeting  of  the  Physical  Society  at  which 
Rontgen  showed  his  first  photographs,  and  since 
that  time  we  have  had  a  whole  new  world,  the 
very  existence  of  which  was  undreamed  of  before, 
opened  up  to  our  astonished  eyes.  We  have  found  a 
world  of  electrons  which  underlies  the  world  of 
atoms  and  molecules  with  which  we  had  been 
familiar,  and  the  discoveries  in  that  world  have 
poured  in  so  rapidly  within  the  last  twenty  years 


MODERN  PHYSICS  141 


that  there  are  no  two  decades  in  human  history 
that  compare  at  all  with  them  in  rapidity  of  ad- 
vance. And  these  discoveries  have  been  made  for 
the  most  part  by  groups  of  men  interested  merely 
in  finding  out  how  Nature  works.  They  have 
been  made  almost  exclusively  by  college  professors; 
and  for  ten  years  they  remained  the  exclusive 
property  of  these  professors.  What  has  happened 
in  the  last  ten  years?  The  industrial  world  has 
fallen  over  itself  in  its  endeavor  to  get  hold  of 
these  advances;  and  by  their  aid  it  has  increased 
ten-fold  the  power  of  the  telephone;  it  has  obtained 
four  or  five  times  as  much  light  as  we  got  a  few 
years  ago  out  of  a  given  amount  of  electrical  power; 
it  has  developed  new  kinds  of  transformers  the 
existence  of  which  was  never  dreamed  of  before. 
All  these  things  are  coming  now,  and  how  many 
more  are  going  to  come,  no  man  can  tell. 

And  yet  we  must  not  focus  our  attention  too 
intently  upon  the  utility  of  a  discovery.  Did  you 
ever  hear  the  story  of  what  happened  when  Faraday 
was  making  before  the  Royal  Society,  in  1831, 
the  experiment  to  which  your  Chairman  referred? 
He  performed  his  experiment,  and  then  explained 
it.  It  was  simple,  it  did  not  look  particularly  in- 
teresting. And  some  woman  in  the  audience  said, 
"But,  Professor  Faraday,  of  what  use  is  it?"  His 
reply  was,  "Madam,  will  you  tell  me  of  what  use 
is  a  newborn  babe?" — and  what  a  reply  it  was! 
Infinite  possibilities — possibilities  which  may  indeed 


142  ROBERT  ANDREWS  MILLIKAN 

not  be  realized,  but  at  any  rate  something  alto- 
gether new.  Faraday  did  not  care  about  the  imme- 
diate use;  for  he  was  one  of  the  great  souls  who 
had  caught  the  spirit  of  Galileo.  He  knew  that 
human  progress  depends  primarily  upon  the  growth 
oj  the  human  mind,  the  ability  of  man  to  get  hold 
of  Nature.  The  utilities  might  come.  They  always 
do  come,  but  they  generally  crop  out  as  by-products; 
and  the  man  who  has  got  his  mind  fixed  merely  on 
utilities  is  simply  the  man  who  kills  the  hen  to 
get  the  golden  egg.  I  have  just  as  much  respect 
for  utilities  as  anybody  has.  I  believe  that  nothing 
is  worth  while  except  as  it  contributes  in  the  end 
to  human  progress;  but  the  difficulty  is  that  you 
cannot  tell,  nor  can  I,  nor  anybody  else  tell,  what 
is  going  to  contribute  to  human  progress.  The 
thing  that  is  important  is  that  t.he  human  mind 
should  grow.  That  is  the  sine  qua  non  of  progress. 

At  the  Capitol  in  Harrisburgh  is  a  picture  by 
Sir  Edwin  Abbey,  which  is  entitled,  "Wisdom,  or 
the  Spirit  of  Science."  It  consists  of  a  veiled  figure 
with  the  forked  lightnings  in  one  hand,  and  in  the 
other,  the  owl  and  the  serpent,  the  symbols  of 
mystery;  and  beneath  is  the  inscription: 

"I  am  what  is,  what  hath  been,  and  what  shall  be. 
My  veil  has  been  disclosed  by  none. 
What  I  have  brought  forth  is  this:  The  sun  is  born." 

It  is  to  lighten  man's  understanding,  to  illuminate 
his  path  through  life,  and  not  merely  to  make  it 
easy,  that  science  exists.  Hence,  if  you  ask  me 


MODERN  PHYSICS  143 


what  are  the  utilities  of  the  particular  category  of 
discoveries  which  I  am  going  to  run  over  here  very 
rapidly,  I  may  be  able  to  tell  you  of  a  good  many 
of  them;  but  I  shall  not  try  to  catalogue  them  all, 
because  that  is  not  where  our  immediate  interest 
lies.  "Where  there  is  no  vision  the  people  perish." 


CHEMISTRY 


XI 

THE    RELATIONS    BETWEEN   APPLIED 
CHEMISTRY  AND  ENGINEERING 

JOHN  BAKER  CANNINGTON  KERSHAW 

[LiKE  mathematics  and  physics,  chemistry  also  may  be 
regarded  from  a  utilitarian  point  of  view.  In  the  following 
article  the  writer  has  indicated  a  number  of  its  uses  to  the 
engineer.  Though  it  was  written  nearly  ten  years  ago,  and 
though  the  list  is  now  obsolete,  it  is  indicative  of  recent  de- 
velopments. A  completion  of  the  summary  would  be  an  inter- 
esting and  valuable  exercise.  The  author,  John  Baker  Canning- 
ton  Kershaw,  was  educated  at  Owens  College,  Manchester,  and 
at  the  University  of  Bonn.  After  a  successful  career  at  the 
Sutton  Lodge  Chemical  Works,  St.  Helen's,  England,  he  estab- 
lished himself  in  Liverpool  and  London  as  a  consulting  chemist 
and  technical  journalist.  The  following  essay  is  reprinted,  by 
arrangement,  from  Industrial  Engineering^  October  15,  1909.] 

The  writer  recently  had  some  correspondence 
with  one  of  the  most  notable  and  successful  engineers 
of  the  present  day  upon  the  relations  of  chemistry 
and  engineering,  and  in  the  course  of  this  corre- 
spondence the  latter  expressed  the  opinion  that  the 
chief  work  of  the  industrial  era  which  is  now  dawning 
will  be  carried  out  not  by  chemists,  and  not  by 
engineers,  but  by  men  who  combine  a  working 
knowledge  of  both  chemistry  and  engineering. 

This  opinion  is  somewhat  in  advance  of  that 

J47 


148  JOHN  BAKER  CANNINGTON  KERSHAW 

generally  held  by  engineers,  and  it  is  the  writer's 
purpose  in  this  article  to  examine  the  evidence 
which  can  be  deduced  in  support  of  it  from  a 
study  of  the  industries  of  the  United  Kingdom  and 
the  United  States  at  the  present  time. 

The  industrial  progress  of  the  nineteenth  century 
was  without  doubt  chiefly  due  to  the  work  of  engi- 
neers. The  discovery  and  development  of  the  coal 
resources  of  England  and  America  followed  imme- 
diately the  improvement  of  Watt's  and  Stevenson's 
steam  engines.  Mechanical  power  gradually  re- 
placed hand  power  in  all  departments  of  manu- 
facturing industry;  the  factory  system  became 
established,  and  was  followed  by  an  enormous 
increase  in  the  scale  of  production  and  by  a  corre- 
sponding diminution  in  the  costs  of  manufacture. 
During  this  period  of  rapid  progress  it  was  the 
engineer  who  took  the  leading  role  and  directed 
operations. 

The  building  of  the  main  lines  of  railway  which 
traverse  the  United  Kingdom  and  the  great  continent 
of  North  America  was  also  carried  out  by  engineers 
during  the  middle  and  later  years  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  while  it  is  to  electrical  engineers  that 
we  owe  thanks  for  the  improvements  in  the  speed 
and  comforts  of  suburban  travel  which  have  taken 
place  during  the  last  twenty-five  years.  The  ma- 
terial and  industrial  progress  of  the  nineteenth 
century  from  its  dawn  to  its  close  was  in  fact  dom- 
inated by  the  engineer,  the  chemist,  except  in 


APPLIED  CHEMISTRY  AND  ENGINEERING        149 

Germany,  being  relegated  to  an  inferior  and  much 
more  humble  position. 

What  grounds  are  there,  then,  for  asserting  that 
the  twentieth  century  is  to  witness  some  correction 
of  this  relationship,  or  for  the  belief  that  the  material 
and  industrial  progress  of  the  present  century  will 
be  more  largely  due  to  the  application  of  chemical 
principles  and  knowledge  to  the  problems  of  the 
world  of  industry? 

Is  this  a  mere  assumption,  or  can  it  be  supported 
by  facts  drawn  from  the  present  conditions  of 
industry  in  both  the  old  and  the  new  worlds? 

For  the  purposes  of  this  article  and  of  the  general 
argument  which  runs  through  it,  it  will  be  most 
useful  to  consider  the  facts  under  the  headings  into 
which  the  subject  naturally  divides  itself. 

In  the  early  days  of  the  mid-Victorian  Epoch, 
when  the  factory  system  had  just  established  itself, 
and  the  world  market  lay  open  to  each  manu- 
facturer, there  was  little  need  to  care  for  the  economic 
aspect  of  power  generation.  The  saving  by  the 
substitution  of  mechanical  for  hand  power  was  so 
great  that  a  large  market  and  huge  profits  were 
assured,  and  no  manufacturer  or  factory  owner 
bothered  himself  with  the  question  whether  his 
fuel  was  being  utilized  to  the  best  advantage,  or 
with  the  efficiency  of  his  boiler  installation.  The 
power  costs  might  be  high,  when  considered  in  the 
light  of  present-day  knowledge,  but  the  price  at 


150  JOHN  BAKER  CANNINGTON  KERSHAW 

which  he  sold  his  goods  sufficed  to  cover  these  and 
to  yield  him  large  profits. 

To-day  the  position  is  changed.  Not  only  has 
each  manufacturer  to  meet  competition  from  rival 
manufacturers  both  in  his  own  and  other  countries 
that  grows  more  keen  as  the  years  pass,  but  new 
and  cheaper  sources  of  power  are  being  tapped  and 
exploited.  These  render  it  imperative  that  the  power 
item  in  each  manufacturer's  cost  sheet  should  be 
reduced  to  the  lowest  possible  figure  if  he  is  to  rhain- 
tain  his  position  in  the  struggle. 

It  is  here  that  the  chemist  has  stepped  in,  and 
has  rendered  great  service  to  the  engineer.  By 
pointing  out  actual  sources  of  loss  in  the  steam 
power  plant,  and  also  by  suggesting  methods  of 
checking  them,  he  has  done  something  to  raise 
the  efficiency  and  to  prolong  the  life  of  the  steam 
power  plant  and  of  the  manufacturer  who  depends 
upon  it.  No  large  steam  power  plant  of  the  present 
day,  in  fact,  can  be  considered  well  equipped  unless 
it  possesses  a  laboratory  for  the  regular  examination 
of  fuel,  feed  water,  and  waste  gases;  and  the  more 
attention  there  is  paid  to  this  work,  the  greater  are 
the  efficiency  and  economy  of  the  power  plant. 
Savings  in  fuel  ranging  from  five  per  cent  up  to 
fifteen  per  cent  and  twenty  per  cent  have  been 
recorded.  The  aim  is,  first,  to  obtain  the  highest 
possible  amount  of  heat  by  the  combustion  of  the 
fuel,  and,  second,  to  transfer  this  heat  to  the  water 
with  the  minimum  percentage  of  loss. 


APPLIED  CHEMISTRY  AND  ENGINEERING        151 

Turning  to  the  other  sources  of  power  which 
have  been  exploited  only  within  recent  years — 
although  with  much  energy  and  success — we  must 
admit  that  the  chemist  has  not  scope  for  the  display 
of  his  abilities  in  the  generation  of  power  from 
water,  and  that  here  chemical  knowledge  and 
chemical  principles  are  at  a  discount  except  in 
regard  to  the  choice  of  oils  and  lubricants  for  trans- 
formers and  motors. 

When  one  turns,  however,  to  the  subject  of  gas 
power,  he  is  confronted  by  problems  which  are 
mainly  chemical  in  character.  The  design  and 
operation  of  gas  producers  and  gas  engines  demand 
chemical  knowledge  and  an  engineering  chemist's 
supervision  if  the  plant  is  to  be  successful. 

The  gas  engine  is  already  hailed  as  the  prime 
mover  of  the  near  future,  and  since  its  thermal 
efficiency  is  approximately  two  and  a  half  times 
that  of  the  best  steam  engine,  the  ousting  of  the 
latter  is  only  a  question  of  time.  The  conversion 
of  fuel  into  a  gas  of  regular  quality  suitable  for  use 
in  a  large  gas  engine  is,  however,  a  more  difficult 
operation  and  process  than  its  complete  combustion 
in  the  furnace  of  a  steam  boiler,  and  chemical 
engineers  will  be  required  to  take  charge  of  all 
producer  gas  installations  designed  for  power  gen- 
eration on  a  large  scale. 

Even  in  the  utilization  of  poor  fuels  like  peat  the 
chemist  and  chemical  engineer  will  have  an  im- 
portant role  to  fill;  for  the  only  processes  of  peat 


152  JOHN  BAKER  CANNINGTON  KERSHAW 

utilization  which  seem  to  hold  the  seeds  of  success 
depend  upon  the  gasification  of  the  peat  and  the 
recovery  of  the  tar  and  other  by-products,  including 
the  nitrogen  as  ammonia.  The  power-gas  plant 
of  the  future  will  in  fact  in  many  cases  resemble 
a  small  chemical  works,  and  the  production  of  the 
gas  will  be  but  the  first  and  most  unimportant  step 
in  a  whole  series  of  chemical  operations  and  processes. 
Chemists  and  chemical  engineers  will  thus  have  a 
great  future  before  them  in  this  branch  of  power 
generation. 

The  smelting  of  iron  and  the  manufacture  of  steel 
is  one  of  the  oldest  and  most  important  of  the 
world's  industries,  and  in  this  industry  the  engineer 
with  the  training  of  a  metallurgical  chemist  or 
metallurgist  is  rapidly  increasing  in  importance. 
One  of  the  most  remarkable  and  far-reaching 
discoveries  of  the  last  twenty-five  years  relates 
to  the  influence  of  small  amounts  of  such  metals 
as  nickel,  manganese,  chromium,  tungsten,  and 
vanadium  upon  the  physical  properties  of  the 
finished  steel.  The  manufacture  of  armor  plate 
and  of  high-speed  tool  steels  is  now  a  most  important 
branch  of  the  steel  industry,  and  this  branch  of 
manufacture  is  rendered  possible  only  by  the  care- 
ful work  of  the  chemist  and  metallurgist.  It  is 
in  fact  now  believed  that  the  high  qualities  of  the 
best  Swedish  steel  and  the  remarkable  properties 
of  the  sword  blades  made  in  Damascus  and  Toledo 


APPLIED  CHEMISTRY  AND  ENGINEERING        153 

hundreds  of  years  ago  are  due  to  the  accidental 
presence  of  some  of  these  rare  metals  in  the  original 
ore  from  which  the  steel  was  made.  The  metal- 
lurgist is  thus  repeating  to-day,  by  more  scientific 
methods,  the  chance  mixings  which  produced  the 
wonderful  sword  steels  of  an  age  long  gone  by. 

The  electric  furnace  has  placed  in  the  hands  of 
the  steel  manufacturer  a  whole  series  of  alloys 
of  the  rare  metals  with  iron  which  were  unobtainable 
ten  or  fifteen  years  ago,  and  in  the  manufacture 
and  utilization  of  these  alloys  the  metallurgical 
chemist  must  necessarily  fill  an  important  role. 

The  chemical  side  of  iron  and  steel  manufacture 
is  thus  becoming  of  greater  importance  in  the 
successful  conduct  of  this  large  and  most  important 
industry,  and  no  steel  maker  of  the  present  day 
can  afford  to  remain  ignorant  of  the  chemical  and 
metallurgical  principles  underlying  its  manufacture. 

The  manufacture  of  Portland  cement  is  another 
of  the  world's  large  industries  that  is  rapidly  growing, 
and  in  which  the  importance  of  the  chemist  and 
chemical  engineer  cannot  be  over-emphasized.  The 
modern  method  of  building  construction  in  which 
reinforced  concrete  has  displaced  brick  and  stone 
has  led  to  an  enormously  increased  demand  for 
Portland  cement,  and  the  safety  of  many  of  our 
largest  modern  buildings  is  thus  dependent  upon 
the  quality  of  the  concrete  used  in  their  construc- 
tion. But  the  quality  of  Portland  cement  requires 
care  and  attention  in  the  selection,  grinding,  and 


154  JOHN  BAKER  CANNINGTON  KERSHAW 

mixing  of  the  raw  materials  from  which  it  is  made; 
and  here  again  the  chemical  engineer  is  the  man  who 
controls  the  processes  and  determines  the  success 
or  failure  of  the  manufacture. 

Gold  extraction  is  another  example  of  an  old 
established  and  important  industry  which  has  now 
entered  upon  a  phase  in  which  the  chemist  is  as 
important  as,  if  not  more  important  than,  the 
engineer.  Since  the  introduction  of  the  cyanide 
process  of  gold  extraction,  by  means  of  which 
enormous  reserves  and  waste  heaps  of  gold  bearing 
sand  or  "tailings"  have  been  treated,  and  the 
gold  extracted  with  a  minimum  of  cost,  new  gold 
bearing  districts  have  been  developed,  and  the 
gold  output  of  the  world  has  been  trebled.  The 
cyanide  process  is,  however,  essentially  chemical 
or  electro-chemical  in  character,  and  no  cyanide 
plant  can  be  worked  without  a  staff  of  skilled 
metallurgical  chemists  to  control  it. 

The  simple  mechanical  process  of  gold  recovery 
by  washing  has  in  fact  been  displaced  by  a  chemical 
process  of  extraction,  and  a  cyanide  plant  is  really 
a  chemical  works  in  which  gold  is  extracted  from 
the  tailings  by  aid  of  a  suitable  solvent,  and  is  then 
deposited  from  the  solution  by  chemical  substitu- 
tion of  another  metal;  namely,  lead  or  zinc. 

The  extraction  or  separation  of  other  metals 
from  their  ores  by  similar  methods  is  also  extending,1 

1  Among  recent  advances  in  the  art  of  separating  and  refining  metals 
are  the  electro-chemical  processes  for  the  deposition  of  silver,  lead,  zinc, 


APPLIED  CHEMISTRY  AND  ENGINEERING         155 

and  a  knowledge  of  chemistry  is  thus  becoming 
more  and  more  imperative  for  those  who  have 
control  of  smelting  operations.  In  many  cases  ores 
contain  small  amounts  of  rarer  metals  of  high 
value,  which  can  be  recovered  with  large  profits 
if  the  attempt  is  made  by  men  possessing  the 
requisite  engineering  and  chemical  knowledge.  The 
separation  of  the  rare  earths  from  the  monazite 
sands  of  Brazil  is  another  large  and  important 
industry  in  which  chemical  methods  play  the 
leading  part.  The  dump  heap  of  some  old  estab- 
lished mine  is  now  often  found  to  be  of  greater 
value  than  the  mine  itself. 

The  twentieth  century  will  no  doubt  be  marked 
in  the  history  of  the  world's  manufacturing  indus- 
tries by  the  success  of  the  efforts  made  to  utilize 
"waste  products,"  and  in  this  field  of  activity  the 
chemist  or  chemical  engineer  will  again  take  the 
leading  role.  Power  from  the  waste  gases  of  blast 
furnaces  is  already  generated  upon  a  large  scale, 
both  on  the  continent  and  in  this  country.  There 
is  little  reason  to  doubt  that,  as  time  passes, 
this  hitherto  wasted  source  of  energy  will  be  more 
utilized  for  various  purposes.  But  the  design  and 
control  of  large  gas  engines  of  one  thousand  horse 
power  and  upwards,  operating  with  blast  furnace 
gas,  demand  chemical  knowledge,  and,  any  large 

tin,  antimony,  etc.    In  many  cases  the  cost  of  refining  is  met  by  the 
value  of  the  metals  recovered. — EDITOR. 


156  JOHN  BAKER  CANNINGTON  KERSHAW 

installation  of  this  kind  can  be  erected  and  run 
with  success  only  by  men  possessing  both  chemical 
and  engineering  training.  Gas  analysis  will  in 
fact  form  a  regular  feature  in  the  operation  of  any 
large  plant  for  generating  power  from  blast  furnace 
gases,  and  the  men  in  charge  must  be  able  to 
interpret  results  if  the  highest  economy  is  to  be 
attained. 

Waste  products  containing  combustible  matter 
are  now  burned  in  special  forms  of  furnace,  or  are 
utilized  in  gas  producers  in  order  to  recover  the 
heat  value  of  the  combustible;  and  here  again 
chemical  and  engineering  knowledge  is  required  in 
order  to  design  and  work  the  furnaces  or  producers 
with  the  maximum  of  efficiency.  Refuse  destructors 
also  demand  similar  qualifications  in  those  who  design 
and  control  them. 

The  manufacture  of  useful  products  from  the 
slag  of  blast  furnaces  and  from  the  clinker  of  fur- 
naces and  destructors  is  another  branch  of  modern 
industry  that  is  growing  rapidly  in  importance, 
and  in  which  large  profits  can  be  made. 

It  was  the  chemist  who  first  pointed  out  the  value 
to  the  agriculturist  of  the  phosphorus  contained  in 
the  ground  Thomas  slag;  and  the  manufacture  of 
ground  slag  is  now  an  important  sub-branch  of  the 
iron  and  steel  industry. 

The  manufacture  of  artificial  stone  and  of  building 
slabs  from  the  clinker  of  destructors  and  other 
similar  types  of  furnace  is  also  a  growing  industry, 


APPLIED  CHEMISTRY  AND  ENGINEERING        157 

and  one  in  which  a  knowledge  of  both  chemistry 
and  engineering  is  demanded. 

The  treatment  of  sewage  is  another  example  of 
a  large  and  important  public  service  which  is  now 
largely  controlled  by  the  chemist  or  chemical 
engineer.  The  collection  and  pumping  of  sewage 
is  no  longer  the  end  of  the  story,  but  is  merely 
the  preliminary  to  some  form  of  treatment.  It  is 
no  longer  thought  wise  or  beneficial,  in  fact,  to  turn 
sewage  in  its  raw  state  into  the  nearest  river  or 
river  estuary;  the  bacterial  treatment  of  sewage 
has  been  generally  accepted  as  the  best  and  most 
efficient  system  of  purification. 

The  authorities  of  most  of  the  larger  English 
towns  and  cities  which  care  for  sanitation  have 
erected  bacterial  tanks  and  filter  beds,  and  are 
increasing  their  equipment  of  these.  But  the  bac- 
terial treatment  of  sewage  is  really  a  chemical 
operation  in  which  living  organisms  are  carrying 
out  the  chemical  changes  required  to  produce  a 
harmless  effluent,  and  if  the  highest  success  is  to 
be  achieved,  chemical  engineers  are  again  required 
to  design  and  take  charge  of  these  installations. 

Limits  of  space  will  not  allow  the  writer  to  dis- 
cuss in  a  detailed  manner  those  manufacturing 
industries  in  which  a  more  extensive  knowledge  of 
chemistry  is  of  supreme  importance  for  those  who 
are  in  a  position  of  authority.  The  aniline  dye 
industry  is  perhaps  the  most  notable  example  of  a 


158  JOHN  BAKER  CANNINGTON  KERSHAW 

large  industry  created  by  the  labors  of  the  chemist 
in  his  laboratory.  Other  manufactures  similar  in 
character  are  artificial  indigo,  madder,  silk,  rubber, 
leather,  wood,  and  ivory,  and  last,  but  not  least, 
artificial  nitrates  from  the  air.1  The  manufacture 
of  explosives  is  also  becoming  more  and  more 
chemical  in  character. 

In  all  these  manufactures  engineering  and  chem- 
ical knowledge  must  be  combined  in  order  to  obtain 
the  best  results,  and  it  would  be  difficult  for  either 
an  engineer  or  chemist  alone  to  overcome  all  the 
difficulties  met. 

Sufficient,  however,  has  been  said  to  show  the 
importance  of  chemical  knowledge  for  the  practical 
engineers  who  are  to  control  the  manufacturing 
industries  of  the  twentieth  century,  and  to  sub- 
stantiate the  claim  that  chemical  engineering  will 
be  one  of  the  most  important  professions  of  the 
coming  industrial  era.  The  proceedings  of  the 
Seventh  International  Congress  of  Applied  Chemistry 
which  met  in  London  in  May  of  the  present  year 
provide  a  fitting  commentary  upon  this  article; 
for  the  Congress  was  divided  into  seventeen  sections 
and  sub-sections,  and  the  subjects  dealt  with  in 
the  papers  read  and  discussed  embraced  nearly 
every  branch  of  manufacturing  industry. 

1  During  the  Great  War  the  production  of  artificial  nitrates  assumed 
unprecedented  importance.  The  arc  process  for  the  manufacture  of 
nitric  acid,  the  cyanide  process,  and  the  process  for  the  synthesis  of 
ammonia  were  highly  developed. 

Similar  development  took  place  in  all  other  chemical  industries. — 
EDITOR. 


XII 

THE  NATURE  AND  METHOD  OF 
CHEMISTRY 

ALFRED  SENIER 

[THOUGH  chemistry,  like  mathematics  and  physics,  is  a  means 
to  an  end,  it  may  be  regarded  as  an  end  in  itself,  and  adventured 
through  delight  in  the  imaginative  processes  by  which  it  is  car- 
ried forward.  Indeed,  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  highest  results 
can  be  obtained  unless  it  be  approached  from  the  seemingly 
antagonistic  points  of  view  already  indicated.  Of  its  method 
the  following  extract,  constituting  the  first  part  of  an  address 
delivered  before  the  Chemical  Section  of  the  British  Associa- 
tion for  the  Advancement  of  Science,  is  notably  suggestive.  It 
is  reprinted,  by  permission  of  the  editor,  from  Nature,  September 
12,  1912.  The  author,  Alfred  Senier  (1853-1918),  educated  at 
the  University  of  Wisconsin,  the  University  of  Michigan,  and 
the  University  of  Berlin,  was  Professor  of  Chemistry  in  Univer- 
sity College,  Galway,  Ireland.] 

Perhaps  there  is  no  intellectual  occupation  which 
demands  more  of  the  faculty  of  imagination  than 
the  pursuit  of  chemistry,  and  perhaps  also  there 
is  none  which  responds  more  generously  to  the 
yearnings  of  the  inquirer.  It  is  surely  no  com- 
monplace occurrence  that  in  experimental  labo- 
ratories day  by  day  the  mysterious  recesses  of 
Nature  are  disclosed,  and  facts  previously  unknown 

159 


160  ALFRED  SENIER 


are  brought  to  light.  The  late  Sir  Michael  Foster, 
in  his  presidential  address  at  the  Dover  meeting, 
said:  "Nature  is  ever  making  signs  to  us,  she  is 
ever  whispering  the  beginnings  of  her  secrets." 
The  facts  disclosed  may  have  general  importance, 
and  necessitate  at  once  changes  in  theory;  and 
happily,  also,  they  may  at  once  find  useful  applica- 
tion in  the  hands  of  the  technologist.  Recent 
examples  are  the  discoveries  in  radioactivity,  which 
have  found  a  place  as  an  aid  to  medical  and  surgical 
diagnosis  and  as  a  method  of  treatment,  and  have 
also  led  to  the  necessity  of  our  revising  one  of  the 
fundamental  doctrines  of  chemistry — the  indivisi- 
bility of  atoms.  But  the  facts  disclosed  may  not 
be  general  or  even  seem  important;  they  may 
appear  isolated  and  to  have  no  appreciable  bearing 
on  theory  and  practice — our  journals  are  crowded 
with  such — but  he  would  be  a  bold  man  who  would 
venture  to  predict  that  the  future  will  not  find 
use  for  them  in  both  respects.  To  be  the  recip- 
ient of  the  confidences  of  Nature;  to  realize  in  all 
their  virgin  freshness  new  facts  recognized  as  pos- 
itive additions  to  knowledge  is  certainly  a  great 
and  wonderful  privilege,  one  capable  of  inspiring 
enthusiasm  as  few  other  things  can. 

While  the  method  of  discovery  in  chemistry  may 
be  described,  generally,  as  inductive,  all  the  modes 
of  inference  which  have  come  down  to  us  from 
Aristotle — analogical,  inductive,  and  deductive — are 
freely  used.  A  hypothesis  is  framed  and  tested, 


NATURE  AND  METHOD  OF  CHEMISTRY  161 

directly  or  indirectly,  by  observation  and  experi- 
ment. All  the  skill,  all  the  resources  the  inquirer 
can  command,  are  brought  into  service;  and  the 
hypothesis  is  established,  and  becomes  part  of  the 
theory  of  science,  or  is  rejected  or  modified.  In 
framing  or  modifying  hypotheses,  imagination  is 
indispensable.  It  may  be  that  the  power  of  imagi- 
nation is  necessarily  limited  by  what  is  previously 
in  experience — that  imagination  cannot  transcend 
experience;  but  it  does  not  follow,  therefore,  that 
it  cannot  construct  hypotheses  capable  of  leading 
research.  I  take  it  that  what  imagination  actually 
does  is  to  rearrange  experience  and  put  it  into  new 
relations;  and  with  each  successive  discovery  it 
gains  in  material  for  this  process.  In  this  respect 
the  framing  of  a  hypothesis  is  like  an  experiment 
in  which  the  operator  brings  matter  and  energy 
already  existing  in  Nature  into  new  relations  with 
the  object  of  getting  new  results.  The  stronger  the 
imaginative  power,  the  greater  the  chance  of  suc- 
cess. The  Times,  in  a  recent  article  on  science  and 
imagination,  says:  "It  has  often  been  said  that 
the  great  scientific  discoverers  .  .  .  see  a  new 
truth  before  they  prove  it,  and  the  process  of  proof 
is  only  a  demonstration  of  the  truth  to  others  and 
a  confirmation  of  it  to  their  own  reason."  While 
never  forgetting  the  tentative  nature  of  a  hypoth- 
esis, still,  until  it  has  been  tested  and  found  wanting, 
one  should  have  confidence  or  faith  in  its  truth- 
fulness; for  nothing  but  belief  in  its  eventual  success 


162  ALFRED  SENIER 


can  serve  to  sustain  an  inquirer's  ardor  when,  as 
so  often  happens,  he  is  met  by  difficulties  well- 
nigh  insuperable.  In  a  well-known  passage  Faraday 
says:  "The  world  little  knows  how  many  of  the 
thoughts  and  theories  which  have  passed  through 
the  mind  of  a  scientific  investigator  have  been 
crushed  in  silence  and  secrecy  by  his  own  severe 
criticism  and  adverse  examination;  that  in  the 
most  successful  instances  not  a  tenth  of  the  sug- 
gestions, the  hopes,  the  wishes,  the  preliminary 
conclusions  have  been  realized." 

But  a  hypothesis  to  be  useful,  to  be  admitted 
as  a  candidate  for  rank  as  a  scientific  theory,  must 
be  capable  of  immediate,  or  at  least  of  possible, 
verification.  Many  years  ago,  in  the  old  Berlin 
laboratory  in  the  Georgenstrasse,  when  our  imagina- 
tions were  wont,  as  sometimes  happened,  to  soar 
too  far  above  the  working  benches,  our  great  leader 
used  to  say:  "I  will  listen  readily  to  any  suggested 
hypothesis,  but  on  one  condition — that  you  show 
me  a  method  by  which  it  can  be  tested."  As  a 
rule,  I  confess  that  we  had  to  return  to  the  work- 
a-day  world,  to  our  bench  experiments.  No  one 
felt  the  importance  of  careful  and  correct  employ- 
ment of  hypotheses  more  than  Liebig.  In  his 
Faraday  lecture  Hofmann  says  of  him:  "If  he 
finds  his  speculation  to  be  contrary  to  recognized 
facts,  he  endeavors  to  set  these  facts  aside  by  new 
experiments,  and,  failing  to  do  so,  he  drops  the 
speculation."  Again,  he  gives  an  illustration  of 


NATURE  AND  METHOD  OF  CHEMISTRY  163 

how,  on  one  occasion,  not  being  able  to  divest  him- 
self of  a  hypothesis,  Liebig  missed  the  discovery 
of  the  element  bromine.  While  at  Kreuznach  he 
made  an  investigation  of  the  mother  liquor  of  the 
well-known  salt,  and  obtained  a  considerable  quan- 
tity of  a  heavy  red  liquid  which  he  believed  to  be 
a  chloride  of  iodine.  He  found  the  properties  to 
be  different  in  many  respects  from  chloride  of 
iodine,  but  he  was  unable  to  satisfy  all  his  doubts, 
and  he  put  the  liquid  aside.  Some  months  later 
he  received  Balard's  paper  announcing  the  dis- 
covery of  bromine,  which  he  recognized  at  once 
as  the  red  liquid  which  he  had  previously  prepared 
and  studied.  Thus,  though  imagination  is  indis- 
pensable to  a  chemist,  and  though  I  think  chemists 
should  be,  and  let  us  hope  are,  poets,  little  can 
be  achieved  without  a  thorough  laboratory  training; 
and  he  who  discovers  an  improved  experimental 
method  or  a  new  differentiating  reaction  is  as 
surely  contributing  to  the  advancement  of  science 
as  he  who  creates  in  his  imagination  the  most  beau- 
tiful and  promising  hypothesis. 

It  may  never  be  possible  to  trace  the  origin  of 
chemistry,  but  the  historical  student  has  been  led, 
it  appears  to  me,  by  a  sure  instinct  to  search  for 
it  in  such  lands  of  imaginative  story  as  ancient 
Egypt  and  Arabia.  Is  there  anything  more  fit- 
tingly comparable  to  the  marvelous  experiences  of  a 
chemical  laboratory  than  the  wonderful  and  fas- 
cinating stories  that  have  come  down  to  us  in 


164  ALFRED  SENIER 


The  Arabian  Nights,  those  monuments  of  poetic 
building  of  which  Burton,  in  the  introduction  to 
his  great  translation,  says  that  in  times  of  official 
exile  in  less  favored  lands,  in  the  wilds  of  Africa 
and  America,  he  was  lifted  in  imagination  by  the 
jinn  out  of  his  dull  surroundings,  and  was  borne 
off  by  them  to  his  beloved  Arabia,  where,  under 
diaphanous  skies,  he  would  see  again  "the  evening 
star  hanging  like  a  golden  lamp  from  the  pure  front 
of  the  western  firmament;  the  afterglow  trans- 
figuring and  transforming  as  by  magic  the  gazelle- 
brown  and  tawny-clay  tints  and  the  homely  and 
rugged  features  of  the  scene  into  a  fairyland  lit 
with  a  light  which  never  shines  on  other  soils  or 
seas?"  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  the  study  of 
such  books  as  this,  the  habit  of  exercising  the 
imagination  by  reconstructing  the  scenes  of  beauty 
and  enchantment  which  they  describe,  might  do 
much  to  strengthen  and  sharpen  the  imaginative 
faculty,  and  might  greatly  increase  its  efficiency 
as  an  indispensable  tool  in  the  hands  of  the  pioneer 
who  seeks  to  extend  the  boundaries  of  knowledge. 
The  Times,  in  the  article  already  quoted,  says  that, 
as  with  a  Shakespeare,  "it  is  the  same  with  imagi- 
native discoverers  in  science.  .  .  .  But  the  faculty 
is  not  merely  a  fairy  gift  that  can  be  exercised  with- 
out pains.  As  the  sense  of  right  is  trained  by  right 
action,  so  the  sense  of  truth  is  trained  by  right 
thinking  and  by  all  the  labor  which  it  involves. 
That  is  as  true  of  the  artist  as  of  the  man  of  science; 


NATURE  AND  METHOD  OF  CHEMISTRY  165 

and  one  of  the  greatest  achievements  of  science 
has  been  to  prove  this  fact  and  so  to  justify  the 
imagination  and  distinguish  it  from  fancy." 

Again,  let  it  not  be  forgotten  that  chemistry 
in  its  highest  sense — that  is,  in  its  most  general 
and  useful  sense — is  purely  a  world  of  the  imagina- 
tion, is  purely  conceptual.  And  in  addition  to  this, 
moreover,  it  is  based,  like  all  science,  on  the  under- 
lying assumption  of  the  uniformity  of  Nature,  an 
assumption  incapable  of  proof.  If  we  think  of 
the  science  as  a  body  of  abstract  general  theory, 
and  exclude  for  the  moment  from  our  view  its 
innumerable  practical  applications,  and  also  all 
special  individual  facts  not  yet  known  to  be  related 
to  general  theory,  then  what  remains  are  the  more 
or  less  general  facts  or  laws.  These  it  is  which 
give  the  power  of  prediction  in  new  cases  of  similar 
character;  the  power  of  foresight  by  which  the 
claim  of  chemistry  to  its  position  as  a  science  is 
justified.  Chemistry,  as  such,  is  an  ideal  structure 
of  the  imagination,  a  gigantic  fairy  palace,  and, 
be  it  noted,  can  continue  to  exist  only  so  long  as 
there  are  minds  capable  of  reproducing  it.  Think 
of  all  the  speculation — and  speculation  too  of  the 
highest  utility  when  translated  into  concrete  appli- 
cations— about  the  internal  structure  of  molecules. 
I  venture  to  say  that  the  most  magnificent  crea- 
tions of  the  greatest  architects  are  not  more  elaborate 
nor  more  beautiful  nor  more  fairylike  than  the 
chemist's  conception  of  intramolecular  structure  and 


166  ALFRED  SENIER 


the  magical  transformations  of  which  molecules  are 
capable;  and  yet  no  one  has  had  direct  sensuous 
experience  of  any  molecule  or  atom,  nor  possibly 
ever  will  have.  But  although  the  conceptual  nature 
of  the  science  is  unquestionable,  it  certainly  contains 
truth  in  some  form  as  tested  by  concrete  realiza- 
tion and  correctness  of  prediction;  and  during  the 
last  century  or  two  it  has  undoubtedly  given  to  man 
a  mastery  over  Nature  of  which  he  had  never 
dreamed. 


IMAGINATION 


XIII 

THE  IMAGINATIVE   FACULTY  IN 
ENGINEERING 

ISHAM  RANDOLPH 

[THOUGH  an  engineer  be  a  master  of  the  tools  which  are  the 
bases  of  his  profession,  he  cannot  expect  to  be  a  successful  prac- 
titioner unless  he  is  gifted  with  the  power  of  imagination. 
How  the  imaginative  faculty,  already  referred  to,  operates  under 
stress  of  practice  is  suggested  by  Dr.  Isham  Randolph  (1848- 
)  in  the  following  address,  which  is  reprinted,  by  permis- 
sion of  the  author  and  editor,  from  the  Journal  of  the  Franklin 
Institute  for  August,  1913.  A  consulting  engineer,  Dr.  Ran- 
dolph has  had  a  long  and  distinguished  career  as  head  of  various 
western  railroads.  He  has  been  associated  also  with  the  con- 
struction of  the  great  canals  and  harbors  of  the  continent, 
having  been  Chairman  of  the  Florida  Everglades  Engineering 
Committee,  a  member  of  the  International  Board  of  Consulting 
Engineers  for  the  Panama  Canal,  and  a  member  of  the  Advisory 
Board.  During  1907-1912  he  completed  the  Chicago  Sanitary 
and  Ship  Canal,  the  largest  artificial  channel  before  the  cut  at 
the  Isthmus.  His  most  interesting  achievement  is  the  Obelisk 
Dam  above  the  Horse  Shoe  Falls  at  Niagara,  which  he  built 
on  end  and  toppled  into  the  river.] 

"We  had  visions,  oh!  they  were  as  grand 
As  ever  floated  out  of  fancy  land." 

are  words  sung  by  a  poet  of  our  own  land  to  the 
ears  of  a  few  who  knew,  honored,  and  loved  the 
singer.  He  sang  of  the  Lost  Cause  with  a  beauty 

169 


170  ISHAM  RANDOLPH 


and  a  pathos  that  touched  the  hearts  of  all  who 
mourned  for  the  men  who  followed  that  conquered 
banner  along  the  path  that  led  to  glory  and  the 
grave. 

The  sculptor  beholds  in  blocks  of  marble,  forms 
that  are  hid  from  his  fellow  men,  who  see  only  a 
mass  of  stubborn  stone.  The  explorers  of  Olympia 
have  resurrected  from  the  detritus  which  buried 
them  treasures  of  Grecian  art  wrought  from  marble 
by  Phidias,  Praxiteles,  and  others,  whose  chisels 
made  Greece  beautiful  and  themselves  famous. 
Within  our  own  time  one  of  our  own  race  and 
nation  saw  in  a  marble  block  an  imprisoned  form, 
and  day  by  day,  with  mallet  and  chisel,  he  toiled 
to  liberate  the  loveliness  of  face,  torso,  and  limb 
that  duller  eyes  could  not  see,  but  which  the  opaque 
covering  could  not  hide  from  him.  Little  by  little 
the  revelation  which,  from  the  first,  was  so  clear 
to  the  sculptor  came  to  his  dull-eyed  fellows,  and 
at  last  the  Greek  Slave  came  forth  in  all  her 
womanly  beauty  to  delight  the  human  vision  until 
she,  too,  shall  some  day  be  buried,  like  the  creations 
of  Praxiteles,  in  some  overwhelming  convulsion  of 
Nature. 

It  is  not,  however,  of  the  poet's  inspired  imagin- 
ings nor  of  the  revelations  of  the  sculptor's  art 
that  I  am  to  speak,  but  of  "The  Imaginative  Faculty 
in  Engineering";  for  the  engineer,  no  less  than 
the  sculptor,  sees  things  that  are  hid  from  other 
eyes  than  his. 


IMAGINATIVE  FACULTY  IN  ENGINEERING        171 

What  has  not  God  revealed  to  the  sons  of  men 
when  He  has  drawn  aside  the  veil  and  let  the  thing 
that  is  to  be,  cast  its  reflection  upon  the  mirror  of 
imagination?  Away  back  in  the  ages  when  the 
children  of  Israel  were  wandering  in  the  Wilderness, 
it  was  disclosed  to  Moses  that  a  tabernacle  should 
be  created  as  a  centre  for  the  worshippers  of  the 
Most  High  God,  and  to  him  were  revealed  the  form, 
the  fashion,  and  the  adornment  of  this  temple 
made  with  hands;  and  the  final  command,  after 
all  had  been  shown  to  his  mental  vision,  was:  "And 
look  that  thou  make  them  after  the  pattern  that 
was  shown  thee  in  the  mount." 

A  man's  first  conception  of  anything  which  ought 
to  be  created  is  his  vision,  the  revelation  which 
impresses  itself  upon  his  imagination  with  a  reality 
that  enables  him  to  reveal  it  to  others,  either  by 
word  painting  or  by  graphic  delineation,  which, 
after  taking  form,  must  be  given  substance.  Giv- 
ing substance  to  the  form  involves  knowledge — 
knowledge  of  materials,  knowledge  of  the  strength 
of  materials — and  ability  to  determine  dimensions 
which  must  be  used  to  give  sustaining  power  to 
the  substance  which  has  taken  the  form  revealed 
to  the  imagination. 

The  vision  does  not  always  come  complete  in 
its  revelation.  First  it  may  be  dim,  seen  through 
a  glass  darkly;  partially  obscuring  mists  hide  all 
but  a  suggestive  glimpse  of  the  thing  that  is  to 
be,  but  that  suggestion  is  grasped  by  the  imaginative 


172  ISHAM  RANDOLPH 


faculty,  and  the  eye  of  the  mind  gazes  earnestly, 
waiting  for  the  passing  of  the  mist  and  the  perfect 
unveiling  of  the  vision.  How  many  of  earth's 
monuments  which  now  stand  to  the  honor  of  the 
engineer  and  render  useful  service  to  mankind  had 
their  genesis  in  imagination!  Take  some  mighty 
suspension  bridge  whose  graceful  catenary  is  not 
distorted  by  loads  which  would  bend  a  Titan's 
back,  and,  as  you  gaze  upon  it,  think  how  it  came 
to  pass.  Multitudes  felt  the  need,  but  the  way  to 
supply  it  was  not  given  to  the  multitude.  One 
among  them  all  saw  the  vision.  He  saw  the  great 
river  flowing  by;  he  felt  that  the  bank  on  which 
he  stood  should  be  joined  to  the  opposite  shore. 
But  how?  Here  and  over  there  he  would  dig 
down  into  the  soil  until  he  reached  a  stable  base; 
in  the  pits  so  sunk  he  would  lay  firm  foundations 
upon  which  he  would  rear  towers,  high  and  strong. 
Inland  from  these  towers  he  would  plant  massive 
anchors  of  masonry;  from  the  anchor  on  the  hither 
shore  to  the  anchor  on  the  farther  shore  he  would 
pass  cables  over  his  high  towers,  cables  that  sagged 
between  the  towers,  and  from  these  by  rods,  gradu- 
ated in  length,  he  would  suspend  beams,  and  on 
these  beams  he  would  lay  his  flooring.  All  of  this 
was  pictured  by  his  imagination.  From  that  pic- 
ture, as  he  saw  it,  he  made  a  material  transference 
which  could  be  seen  by  his  fellows.  The  plan 
was  adopted.  Deep  down  to  an  enduring  base 
the  foundations  were  carried  by  men  whose  strength 


IMAGINATIVE  FACULTY  IN  ENGINEERING        173 

and  toil  rear  all  of  earth's  structures,  be  they  perish- 
able or  enduring.  Those  skilled  among  them  in 
the  arts  of  stereotomy  builded  the  masonry  strong 
and  high.  In  the  works  where  ore,  dug  from  the 
mines,  is  melted  and  fused  by  coal  dug  from  other 
mines,  the  members,  of  mighty  section  and  prodigi- 
ous strength,  were  forged  and  fabricated.  In  other 
works  were  drawn  the  wires  that  in  union  would 
make  the  strength  of  the  cables  that  should  stretch 
across  the  stream.  Trees  of  centuries'  growth, 
felled  in  far-off  forests,  were  sawn  and  fashioned 
for  their  place;  and  when  all  was  ready,  the  mul- 
titudinous parts  were  assembled,  the  cables  were 
made  fast  to  their  anchorages  and  lifted  to  their 
saddles  on  the  tops  of  the  towers  by  machines 
which — like  the  work  that  they  were  set  to  aid 
in  creating — had  their  beginning  in  the  imagination. 
By  and  by,  all  was  accomplished;  and  two  tides 
of  humanity  ebb  and  flow  across  the  bridge. 

No  river  sways  such  power  for  good  to  the  whole 
land  if  made  amenable  to  human  control,  and  no 
river  in  the  land  is  so  terribly  devastating  in  its 
unbridled  power,  as  is  the  Mississippi.  Against 
its  encroachments  men  have  raised  barriers,  broad 
and  strong,  only  to  have  them  undermined  and 
engulfed  by  the  onsweeping  waters. 

This  river,  for  scores  of  miles  before  it  pours  its 
sweet  waters  into  the  brine  of  the  Gulf,  is  wide  and 
many  fathoms  deep;  but  for  uncounted  centuries 
it  has  been  transporting  soils,  filched  from  its 


174  ISHAM  RANDOLPH 


banks,  and  depositing  them  at  its  mouth;  building 
land  out  into  the  Gulf,  and  finally  crossing  barriers 
of  its  own  construction,  not  by  one  channel,  but 
by  many.  No  one  of  these  channels  was  deep  enough 
to  permit  ocean-going  vessels  of  the  larger  class 
to  enter  the  deep,  wide  water  that  came  down 
from  the  north  and  then  flowed  by  shallower  ways 
over  the  barriers  and  out  to  sea;  and  so  commerce 
upon  the  river  was  only  for  river  craft.  About 
the  year  1875  a  man  with  a  vision  came  to  the 
Government  with  a  plan  to  secure  deep  navigation 
across  the  bars  that  closed  the  mouth  of  the  river. 
This  man — Eads — saw  in  his  vision  tw"o  lines  of 
jetties  constructed  of  willow  mattresses  weighted 
with  stone,  laid  parallel  to  each  other  and  a  thousand 
feet  apart.  These,  in  his  mind's  eye,  grew  in  height 
and  length  until  they  stretched  from  deep  water 
up  stream  to  deep  water  in  the  Gulf.  He  saw  the 
waters  as  they  flowed  down  to  this  contracted 
channel  pile  up  until  they  attained  a  head  suf- 
ficient to  give  them  the  necessary  velocity  to  carry 
through  the  reduced  cross  section  the  volume  which 
had  flowed  sluggishly  through  the  wider  way.  He 
saw  the  velocity  impart  erosive  energy  to  the 
waters  which  impinged  upon  the  sand  at  the  bottom 
of  this  new  channel,  each  eroding  drop  of  water 
picking  up  its  grain  of  sand  and  carrying  it  along 
until,  emerging  into  the  unlimited  area  of  the  Gulf, 
it  lost  its  energy  and  dropped  its  load.  Thus  myriad 
drops  of  water  carried  myriad  grains  of  sand,  and 


IMAGINATIVE  FACULTY  IN  ENGINEERING        175 

every  grain  removed  tended  to  deepen  the  channel 
between  the  jetties.  This  he  saw,  and  thus  did 
the  waters  labor  until  they  had  dug  for  themselves 
a  way  out  to  the  Gulf,  through  which  they  might 
flow  unvexed;  and  when  that  work  was  accom- 
plished, the  way  was  open  for  the  toilers  of  the 
sea  in  their  deep-laden  craft  to  pass  to  and  fro 
between  the  Crescent  City  and  the  seaports  of  the 
world.  The  imagination  wrought  first,  and  the 
physical  results  confirmed  its  vision. 

Where  the  waters  of  Niagara  make  their  fearful 
leap  over  the  edge  of  the  escarpment,  and  then 
rush  madly  down  the  gorge  to  the  whirlpool  and 
beyond,  the  imaginative  faculty  in  engineering 
has  left  its  impress,  and  great  works  bear  witness 
to  the  fact  that  there  it  has  wrought  mightily. 
Back  of  that  awful  sheet  of  falling  water  is  a  path- 
way forever  wet  with  the  ofF-flung  spray;  on  one 
side  is  the  hard  wall  of  the  escarpment,  on  the 
other  the  wall  of  green,  translucent  waters,  the 
dim  twilight  effect  made  awesome  by  the  roar  of 
the  torrent  wall  as  it  drops  into  the  abyss — a  wall 
forever  falling  but  never  broken.  A  man  trod  this 
dangerous  path,  and  he  heeded  not  the  roar,  nor 
the  mist,  nor  the  death  that  might  claim  him 
should  he  make  a  false  step  on  that  slippery  footing. 
He  saw  a  vision.  His  eye  pierced  the  face  of  the 
escarpment,  and  he  saw  a  tunnel  open  up  through 
the  rock  beneath  the  river.  His  tunnel  went 
straight  to  a  spot  in  the  roaring,  seething  waters 


176  ISHAM  RANDOLPH 

some  thousands  of  feet  from  where  he  stood,  and 
there  he  saw  a  deep,  long  slit  in  the  rock,  rising 
from  the  up-stream  end  of  his  tunnel  to  a  stately 
building.  In  the  building  were  generators  carried 
on  top  of  vertical  shafts  which  were  caused  to 
rotate  by  turbines  at  their  lower  ends  down  in  the 
bottom  of  that  long,  deep  slit  in  the  rock.  All 
this  and  more  the  imaginative  faculty  in  engineering 
revealed  to  that  engineer,  and  the  engineer  made 
it  plain  to  men  with  money  that  the  sublimation 
of  his  vision  would  make  their  money  earn  more 
of  its  kind;  and  to-day  you  may  look  upon  the 
completed  work  of  the  Electrical  Development 
Company  and  know  that  it  is  there  because  of  the 
imaginative  faculty  in  engineering. 

Another  engineer  explores  the  canyon  of  a  river. 
The  walls  here  are  not  far  apart,  and  an  idea,  a 
vision,  comes  to  the  engineer.  That  river  at 
times  is  a  torrent;  the  rains  have  descended  and 
the  floods  have  come  and  the  river  rushes  on,  a 
destructive  agency,  leaving  a  land  behind  perishing 
of  thirst.  The  engineer  asks  himself,  "To  what 
purpose  is  this  waste?"  And  again,  "Why  should 
not  this  waste  be  prevented?"  And  the  answer 
comes,  "It  can  be,  and  you  can  do  it."  Then  he 
sees  the  way.  He  will  hold  the  pass  against  the 
oncoming  waters.  The  imaginative  faculty  is  at 
work,  and  shows  him  that  deep  down  beneath 
the  stream  are  footings  sure  and  steadfast  on  which 
he  can  found  a  dam;  this  dam  he  can  anchor  into 


IMAGINATIVE  FACULTY  IN  ENGINEERING        177 

the  granite  banks  of  the  stream.  That  was  a 
revelation;  to-day  it  is  a  reality.  The  Arrow 
Rock  Dam  rises  351  feet  above  its  base,  and  the 
waters  rush  against  it;  they  stop  and  swell  and 
press,  but  the  dam  is  stronger  than  the  pressure. 
The  floods  have  lost  their  freedom,  the  waste  of 
waters  has  been  stopped  after  untold  ages,  and 
to-day  they  are  gathered  and  sent  to  make  gardens 
in  the  desert;  and,  like  Samson  of  old,  they  must 
grind  in  their  prison  house  and  give  off  power  which 
will  do  man's  work  and  light  man's  dwellings. 
The  voice  that  spake  to  Moses  speaks  to  the 
engineer  to-day:  "And  look  that  thou  make  them 
after  the  pattern  that  was  shown  thee  in  the  mount." 


XIV 
ENGINEERING  AND  ART 

ON  THE  VALUE  OF   THE  SCIENTIFIC    USE  OF  THE 
IMAGINATION 

JULIAN  CHASE  SMALLWOOD 

[As  Alfred  Senier  indicates  in  his  address,  the  creative  pro- 
cesses of  the  engineer  are  not  unlike  those  of  the  man  of 
letters.  For  this  reason  the  study  of  literature  has  long  been 
regarded  as  of  the  utmost  value  in  the  development  of  the 
imagination.  Nowhere,  possibly,  has  its  importance  been  set 
forth  more  pleasantly  than  in  the  following  essay  by  Professor 
Smallwood,  which  is  reprinted,  by  permission  of  the  author,  from 
Cassier's  Magazine,  January,  1910.  Julian  Chase  Smallwood 
(1881-  )  is  a  graduate  of  Columbia  University  and  of  the 
Johns  Hopkins  University,  and  has  taught  in  Columbia  Uni- 
versity, in  the  George  Washington  University,  in  the  University 
of  Pennsylvania,  in  Syracuse  University,  and  in  the  Johns 
Hopkins  University,  where  he  is  connected  with  the  Depart- 
ment of  Mechanical  Engineering.  He  is  the  author  of  many 
technical  treatises  and  articles  on  original  devices  and  methods, 
especially  in  laboratory  practice,  and  of  various  essays  on  the 
problems  of  engineering  education.] 

In  this  age  of  industry  and  greed  we  are  all 
liberally  tarred  with  the  stick  of  commercialism. 
It  tinctures  our  acts  and  judgments,  and  all  but 
blinds  us  to  the  fact  that  we  have  time  for  any- 

178 


ENGINEERING  AND  ART  179 

thing  but  trade.  Literature  is  closed  to  us.  On 
the  rare  occasions  when  the  successful  business 
man  surrenders  himself  to  the  opera  or  art  gallery, 
he  consoles  himself  with  the  reflection  that  his 
social  advancement  may  be  converted  into  dollars 
and  cents,  and  that  thus  his  time  may  not  be 
wholly  lost.  Sometimes  he  makes  art  his  hobby, 
and  then  his  valuation  of  the  beautiful  is  based 
upon  the  existing  amount  of  it  and  the  prominence 
given  to  him  if  he  secures  it.  But  there  is  not, 
and  never  can  be,  thinks  he,  any  direct  connection 
between  art  and  money-getting. 

If  this  is  true  of  those  engaged  in  trade,  is  it 
not  more  or  less  true  of  engineers,  whose  vocation 
is,  it  has  been  said,  to  make  one  dollar  do  the  work 
of  two?  I  can  imagine  someone  answering,  "My 
part  in  life  is  economic  production;  it  is  another's 
part  to  paint  pictures,  to  compose  music,  or  to  make 
poetry.  Should  I  depart  from  my  way  to  dabble 
in  work  which  is  not  mine,  especially  as  the  out- 
come only  furnishes  the  relaxation  which  may  be 
pleasant  to  others  but  not  to  me?  My  relaxation 
is  the  pursuit  of  science;  what  will  art  avail  me?" 
Doubtless  this  view  is  typical  of  engineers  who 
are  truly  enthusiastic  in  their  work.  Aside  from 
this  singleness  of  interest,  the  very  nature  of  engi- 
neering inclines  us  toward  the  mundane.  We  who 
are  practicing  our  profession  have  it  forced  upon 
us  from  start  to  finish  that  the  dollar  is  the 
most  potent  factor  in  the  denominator  of  all  frac- 


180  JULIAN  CHASE  SMALLWOOD 

tions  expressing  efficiency.  Our  sensibilities  are 
burdened  beyond  their  strength  with  this  weight 
of  the  dollar.  It  is  not  our  business  to  build  an 
engine  that  will  deliver  the  highest  horse  power 
hours  per  pound  of  steam,  but  to  construct  one  to 
yield  the  maximum  work  for  the  dollar  expended. 
The  goddess  Efficiency  sinks  into  insignificance 
beside  the  glory  of  her  sistet  Economy.  None 
disputes  that  Economy  has  superior  charms,  and 
is  worthy  of  the  worship  accorded  her.  The  fault 
lies  in  us  rather  than  in  her,  that  we  cannot  pay  her 
homage  without  being  dazzled  by  her  brilliance. 
And  thus  we  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  there  are 
other  goddesses  the  worship  of  whom  is  merited  and 
wise.  So  the  engineer  asks  in  his  simplicity,  "Of 
what  avail  is  art  to  me?" 

I  can  imagine  you,  busy  man  of  science,  turning 
over  the  page  with  a  sneer,  saying,  "Art  and  en- 
gineering— yes,  Kipling  has  coupled  them;  but  I 
cannot  see  that  engineering  is  any  the  better  for 
it."  Have  you  ever  reflected  upon  the  talents  of 
that  friend  of  story  lovers,  F.  Hopkinson  Smith, 
who  was  at  once  a  novelist,  a  painter,  and  an  en- 
gineer? Have  you  ever  thought  of  that  master 
of  English  letters  who  could  produce  "The  Raven" 
in  spite  of  one  of  the  keenest  mathematical  minds 
of  his  generation?  Have  you  ever  been  informed 
that  Charles  Lutwidge  Dodgson,  a  brilliant  writer 
and  lecturer  on  mathematics,  has  furnished  a  pleasure 
to  your  children  which  you  have  never  given  them, 


ENGINEERING  AND  ART  181 

and  will  do  so  to  generations  of  little  ones  to  come, 
by  his  creation  of  Alice  in  Wonderland*  Do 
you  remember  reading  in  your  schoolboy  history 
about  Benjamin  Franklin,  whose  homely  inventions 
and  tremendous  scientific  discoveries  live  and  are 
useful  to-day,  side  by  side  with  his  Poor  Richard1  s 
Almanac?  You  know  of  his  illustrious  name  in 
science.  Do  you  know  of  his  achievements  in  letters  ? 
Consider  these  famous  men  and  many  more  like 
them;  then  ask  yourself,  "Is  there  any  tangible 
connection  between  art  and  science?"  "Doubt- 
less," you  will  say,  "a  man  may  have  artistic  as 
well  as  scientific  accomplishments."  I  reply  that 
these  men  were  better  scientists  because  they  were 
artists,  and  that  you  will  be  if  you  cultivate  any- 
thing that  may  be  artistic  in  you.  The  magnificent 
City  of  Engineering  has  a  broad  road  traversing  it 
and  leading  into  the  beautiful  Country  of  Art — 
the  Road  of  Imagination.  If  we  labor  on  without 
following  this  road,  we  are  as  children  of  the  alleys 
who  do  not  know  the  inspiring  sunshine. . 

Men  of  science,  your  faculties  are  weakened  by 
the  exactitude  which  is  your  pride.  You  measure 
and  weigh,  and  you  are  surrounded  and  overwhelmed 
by  the  limitations  imposed  by  the  experiences 
of  your  senses.  You  are  too  material.  If  you 
had  been  Newton  observing  the  apple  fall,  you 
would  have  thought,  "The  reason  why  it  fell  was 
because  its  stem  became  too  weak  to  hold  it." 
Newton,  however,  had  an  imagination,  and  thereby 


182  JULIAN   CHASE  SMALLWOOD 

he  discovered  the  law  of  gravitation.  And  so  it 
is  with  name  after  name  in  history,  and  so  it  will 
be  with  you  and  me.  We  may  achieve  some  small 
measure  of  success  by  doing  what  our  fathers  did 
before  us,  but  our  really  great  deeds  will  be  offspring 
of  our  imaginations.  Sometimes  we  see  an  in- 
vention accomplished  by  chance,  or  a  benefit  opened 
to  mankind  by  a  stumbling  footstep.  Such  are  rare; 
and  shiftless  we  should  be  did  we  count  upon 
accidents  for  success. 

Does  it  not  become  apparent  that  without  the 
stimulus  of  imagination  science  becomes  as  un- 
productive as  a  tree  which  puts  forth  only  leaves 
when  it  should  bear  fruit  ?  I  would  put  it  even  more 
strongly.  Science  is  but  a  servant  of  the  imagina- 
tion. Euclid  built  his  geometry  theorem  upon 
theorem,  and  his  science  served  his  imagination  to 
create  a  new  structure.  The  delightful  imagination 
that  conceived  Alice  in  Wonderland  was  the  attribute 
that  made  the  scientist  in  its  author  capable  of 
grasping  that  zero  divided  by  zero  equals  a  finite 
quantity.  And  no  one  can  deal  with  mathematics 
understandingly  who  does  not  allow  this  quality 
of  his  mind  full  play.  When  we  deal  with  infinity 
in  the  science  of  generic  members;  when  we  speak 
of  lines  of  force  in  electricity;  when  we  consider 
atoms  in  chemistry  or  entropy  in  thermodynamics^ 
we  step  at  once  into  the  domain  of  imagination. 
The  sense  cannot  grasp  these  things.  How,  then. 
can  we  even  remotely  conceive  them  without 


ENGINEERING  AND  ART 183 

employing  the  imagination?  Have  you  ever  stopped 
to  think  of  what  audacious  conceptions  your  daily 
work  is  based  upon?  What  a  fanciful  thing  is  a 
logarithm!  obtained  by  multiplying  a  number  by 
itself  a  fractional  number  of  times.  What  a  com- 
monplace figure  is  TT,  and  yet  how  absolutely  im- 
possible to  grasp!  How  wonderful  that  the  calculus 
enables  us  to  obtain  in  one  minute  a  result  whose 
arithmetical  computation  would  last  for  infinity! 
If  you  use  these  things  without  reflecting  upon  the 
wonder  of  them,  you  will  be  as  a  man  who  guides 
an  automaton  that  turns  bone  into  buttons,  and 
takes  interest  in  naught  but  the  raw  material  and 
the  product.  Should  he,  however,  possess  that 
ability  which  I  am  disposed  to  exalt,  it  would  lead 
him  to  consider  thus:  "The  steps  in  this  trans- 
formation are  as  I  see  them.  If  this  step  should 
be  omitted,  and  that  one  combined  with  another, 
what  a  saving  there  would  be!  The  machine  will 
do  more  work  in  a  given  time,  will  be  simpler, 
and  will,  therefore,  cost  less.  Perhaps  I  can  accom- 
plish it."  And  here  his  mind  may  finish  the  imag- 
inative work  it  has  begun.  Franklin  did  but  this 
vhen  he  first  conceived  and  then  proved  the  identity 
of  lightning  and  electricity. 

We  are  all  born  with  some  of  this  divine  fire  of 
imagination.  We  see  it  in  children;  but,  alas! 
it  too  often  sinks  into  desuetude  with  the  passage 
of  childhood.  Can  you  give  it  new  life?  Un- 
doubtedly. No  matter  what  your  years,  nor  how 


184  JULIAN  CHASE  SMALLWOOD 

mundane  have  become  your  views  of  life  and  work, 
you  still  have  the  power  of  developing  it.  The 
phenomenon  is  of  daily  occurrence.  A  new  interest, 
a  new  hope  or  faith,  kindles  the  fire,  and  we  again 
live  in  the  realm  of  imagination — for  a  time.  We 
can  always,  with  the  will,  cause  this  spark  to  flame. 
And  I  think  that  that  which  is  most  conducive  to 
its  development  is  a  lively  appreciation  of  liter- 
ature, an  appreciation  which  may  be  acquired  by 
anyone  whose  intelligence  entitles  him  to  the  name 
of  engineer.  Books  are  ever  ready  and  ever  faithful 
friends.  When  I  think  of  the  thousands  who  have 
been,  and  will  be,  intellectually  nourished,  as  well 
as  entertained,  and,  therefore,  strengthened  for 
their  work  by  such  a  man  as  Thackeray,  I  feel  that 
he  and  such  as  he  are  among  the  first  benefactors 
of  the  human  race.  Do  not  turn  away  from  them, 
saying  that  3^ou  have  no  time  for  such  pastimes. 
You  have  time  for  anything  that  you  earnestly 
want  to  do.  Want  to  do  this.  Do  not  deprive 
your  imaginations  of  such  a  stimulus.  If  you 
read  a  poem  such  as  "The  Ancient  Mariner," 
picture  after  picture  will  flash  before  your  mind; 
the  wonder  of  Coleridge's  words  is  that  they  cause 
this  active  working  of  the  imagination.  Such  a 
mental  exercise  cannot  fail  to  make  vigorous  that 
attribute  of  the  mind,  no  matter  how  dormant, 
which  is  so  essential  to  a  broadening  of  our  scope 
of  usefulness. 

I  have  sought  to  point  out  that  the  engineer's 


ENGINEERING  AND  ART 185 

inclinations  and  vocation  cause  him  to  ignore  the 
creations  generalized  under  the  name  of  art;  that 
such  ignorance  deprives  him  not  only  of  a  vast 
pleasure,  but  a  positive  benefit;  and  that  he  actually 
needs  this  benefit  in  his  daily  work.  If  it  is  acknowl- 
edged that  imagination  is  essential  to  science,  the 
appreciation  of  it  will  result  in  a  new  perception, 
a  new  perspective,  and  a  range  at  present  beyond 
his  ken.  His  conceptions  of  the  real  combined  with 
the  unreal  will  be  the  embryo  of  ideal  fulfillment. 
And  these  selective  and  constructive  conceptions 
will  be  born  of  the  only  mother  who  can  bear  them, 
whom  perhaps  he,  with  others,  has  scorned — the 
mother  Imagination. 


THE  END 


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